BY LORETTA B MANELE

Member of Parliament for East Are’are Constituency, Peter Kenilorea Jr has voiced the advantage of providing rewards such as accelerated incremental payments for doctors and nurses who have to go and work in remote areas of the provinces.

Contributing to the 2026 Appropriation Bill 2025 discussion on Head 09- Ministry of Health and Medical Services during the Committee of Supply Stage on Monday this week, he emphasised the idea of supporting doctors and nurses facing hardships going to work in remote areas of the country.

“Just coming back to the allowances and perhaps also rewarding our workers and doctors and nurses who are perhaps facing some hardship going on for some of our remote, isolated cases,” he said.

He asked whether the government in terms of policy, is looking to reward them with things like accelerated incremental payments.

“When you go to those places, you are qualified for self-accelerated, for your increments. You don’t have to wait for a year.

“Sometimes, ten months, eight months, you accelerate them up. In a way, it probably gives some incentives for those people who are going out there to do that kind of work. There are some other allowances, I know that they’re called mobility.

“The more you move around to those other places, the more you move faster. Sometimes, they even lead to promotions. The more you go out to those places, the more you’ll be looked at for promotions,” he explained.

He said these are things that perhaps in the long or medium term might help to attract health doctors and nurses to move out and work in the provinces.

“We are looking at the whole career path, moving forward in terms of pathways,” he said.

The Member of Parliament for East Are’are then asked if there is any thinking behind these kinds of incentives that do not necessarily revolution immediately, but something that might add on to the career pathways moving forward.

Paul Popora Bosawai, Minister of Health and Medical Services, agreed, noting that he likes the suggestions put forward by Kenilorea Jr.

In response, he said as he has always stated in his speeches, if we want a good healthcare system, we have to have a good, improved health infrastructure, a good health workforce.

“The health workforce that comes from your suggestion, which is the human resource. I really ask my team to develop a robust human resource health system. I ask them that I want a system that continues to do what you have just suggested,” he said.

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