National Capital District (NCD) Provincial Health Authority (PHA) recently swore in ten newly appointed Board members at the National Department of Health (NDoH) Headquarters at Aopi Centre in Port Moresby. Members of the board included Chairman Mr. Daniel Waswas, Deputy Chairman Mr. Hubert Namani, Dr. Dora Lenturut-Kata representing the NDoH, Mr. Yiannis Nicolaou, Mr. Justin Tan, Reverend Mr. Jacob Kila, Ms. Dika Toua, Ms. Mirriam Dogimab, Dr. Luke Anthony and NCD City Manager and ex-officio member, Mr. Ravu Frank. Two members of the new board – Ms. Toua and Rev. Kila - were not present on this occasion. The swearing-in ceremony was witnessed by senior management of NDoH, the NDoH legal team, NCD PHA CEO Dr. Steven Yennie, and directors and staff of the NCD PHA. This is the second NCD PHA Governance Board after a three-year tenure for the initial and first board, ended in December 2022. Members of this new board will also serve for a term of three years. The PHA board’s role is to provide governance oversight and direction to the CEO and the management team to oversee all health service delivery in the National Capital District, including Motu Koita. Health Minister Dr. Lino Tom congratulated and welcomed the new board on behalf of the Health Ministry and Department while emphasizing the need for good governance. Dr. Lino said scarcity of resources is a universal problem including here in PNG and even in Australia, but good governance makes the difference. “If you can spend those scarce resources in areas of need, then the impact you will get will be far greater than spending resources in areas that are not needed. One of the reforms that we are trying to bring is to have good governance in place.” Dr. Lino stated that the PHA system is a new concept and there are still doubts and complaints about PHAs and their functions including in Cabinet, stating that a significant number of leaders believe that PHAs are not working in the country. “The challenge is quite daunting for me to try to explain to non-medical people about the importance of PHAs and that the PHA structure has been put in place after extensive research into that space.” "It’s quite difficult to convince people. It will make my job easier if we start having PHAs functioning as they ultimately should,” he said. “What I’m advocating in Parliament is that when you have good board members, when you have a functional and competent board, PHAs should work, because basically, the mechanism oversight is that the PHA respond to the board and in the PHA system now, the oversight mechanism is the board. If the board is not functional, it’s quite difficult to realize the dreams we have in the health plan.” “We have a very competent board here,” said the Health Minister. Meanwhile, Dr. Lino reminded the new board that it is important to work with local leaders because nothing gets done without them. He directed this message to all PHAs around the country – to work with their local leaders. “My challenge for you is to work with your leaders." "They have to be part of your team so that they can advocate for you in terms of funding, and they will advocate for you for special projects in Parliament." "This is my message for a good and competent board for all PHAs in the country.”