November, 2008

The Goroka General Hospital staffs were privileged to undergo the public service induction training. For some they had been working for more than ten years, while for others they had been working for only a year. The trainees included doctors, nurses, administrative staff, allied health staff and the hospital maintenance staff. All in all there was 120 staff from the hospital that attended the 2 weeks induction. The first batch of 60 in the first week and the second batch of 60 the following week.

The facilitators were from the National Department of Health as well as from the Institute of Public Administration in Port Moresby.

Topics covered in the course were:

1. Orientation to the Public Service
2. Orientation to the agency (Central and line Departments)
3. Orientation to the Agency ( Provincial)
4. Orientation to the job.

The public service in PNG is often termed as ineffective or disorientated and I believe as a participant that this is because many public servants have not been inducted or due to the fact that there has not been any refresher courses for older public servants on the code of ethics, the Public Service ‘General Orders’ and lack of general quality supervision from supervisors at all levels.

With many more of these Inductions planned for other provinces and the PSWDI sponsored development of ten Basic Modules to help public servants to develop their core competencies in their jobs, the Public Service culture can be revolutionized.

A big thank you to the Management of Goroka General Hospital for releasing its staff and funding and also the NDOH/PNGIPA for facilitating and co funding the Induction.

We all hope that there can be a cultural change in Productivity and efficiency in our hospital now that we have been educated and inducted.

Finally, ‘an EDUCATED Public Service is an EFFECTIVE Public Service’.

Dr Paul WARI
Participant.