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Friday, June 10, 2011

Australian health service slammed over PNG TB death

Via Radio Australia News :

" A Papua New Guinean man whose daughter died in a north-east Australian hospital has been told he will have to use a dinghy to get himself and his daughter's body home.

Petru Aniba made a mercy dash from his home village to the Torres Strait in February in the hope of saving his 14-year-old daughter Marthi, who was suffering tuberculosis.

She eventually died in Cairns Base Hospital. Her father too had tuberculosis and has only been released from quarantine.

Queensland Health officials said they would only fly the man and his dead daughter as far as the Torres Strait.

Isolation

His friend Robert Slade says Mr Aniba travelled from his village to the Papua New Guinean township of Daru, and from there canoed to Saibai Island in the Torres Strait.

"Then from Saibai he was choppered to Thursday Island, then from Thursday Island he was flown down to the Cairns Base Hospital," Mr Slade said.

"Unfortunately, his daughter Marthi passed away on February 24 and then Aniba was put into isolation for a few months because of tuberculosis.

"He came out of isolation about, roughly, five weeks ago and has been waiting for him and his daughter to be able to be repatriated back home so he can bury his daughter."

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