Medical Costs

Educational And

Hit The Church

From a Port Moresby correspondent Parents whose children go to Anglican schools in Papua-New Guinea will have to pay higher fees from the beginning of next year.

And patients at Anglican hospitals will for the first time be charged medical fees, although mission staff and schoolchildren will be exempt.

The charges are designed to meet rising costs.

Education charges were introduced by the Anglican Church in the ter ritory for the first time at the begin ning of this year.

It is hoped to raise about $50,000 with the new scale of fees, which will now be S 3 a year per child in exempt schools, $5 per child in recognised primary schools and $lO per child in secondary schools. (Present charges are $3 a year per family with children in exempt and recognised primary schools and $6 per family for secondary schools).

It was hoped to raise about $25,000 from fees this year, but the total collected amounted to only just over $14,000.

Earlier this year Anglican authorities took the step of refusing admission to children whose parents, without official exemption, had failed to pay the fees by the third term.

It is not yet clear how far this policy has affected the intake of children to Anglican schools, but it is not expected to cause a very large reduction because many parents paid the fees as soon as their children were sent home.

The policy will continue under the new scale of fees, but the church will also continue to grant exemption from the charges in cases of hard ship.

Outpatients at Anglican hospitals will next year be charged 10 cents for each condition treated. Inpatients will be charged 50 cents, irrespective of how long they stay in hospital.

Patients in areas with little or no cash economy will be asked to pay in food.

Infant welfare and ante-natal clinics will continue to be free and it will be left to the discretion of individual matrons to decide whether or not to charge women who have their babies in hospital.