MTS Foundation Charity - Papua New Guinea


Madang Province has a population of an estimated 450,000 people most of whom live in remote regions without access to roads. 70,000 live on the outlying islands of Boisa, Manam, Kar Kar, Bagabag & Long Island and rely solely on banana boats powered by outboard motors for transport which are not suitable for medivacs and they themselves are dangerous in open water during inclimate weather. Although there are some operational air strips in Saidor, Tapen, Teptep, Bambu, Meibu, Wangeto, Gusap, Bundi, Aiome, Simbai, Sangapi, Mamuse, Yilu, Chingribu, Kar Kar, Long Island, Josephstaal, Nahu most of the other airstrips have closed due to lack of maintenance.
In Madang we have three charter operators that include Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), Island Airways & Heli Niugini. Fixed wing aircraft can only operate into serviceable airstrips listed above which means in most cases where medivacs are required helicopters are the only means of transport. All medivacs provided by the charter companies must be paid in advance and of course aircraft charters, specially helicopter charters are extremely expensive and quite unaffordable to the people of Madang who live below the poverty line.
The Melanesian Foundation respond to emergency medivacs that are considered to be "life & death" situations as it would be financially impossible to meet the many requests for medivacs. In the past, all helicopter medivacs have been piloted by Sir Peter Barter, the Chairman. The total cost of the helicopter operation is borne jointly by the Melanesian Foundation and MTS Limited. Recently, the Provincial Government has begin assisting the Foundation by supplying AVGAS which has helped given the rising cost of fuel and the difficulty of securing fuel.
The pictures show the Foundation helicopter undertaking some hundreds of the medivacs. On of the pictures show the helicopter landing on the active volcano in Lake Wisdom on Long Island. The helicopter is also shown on the ground at Josephstaal have delivered a generator, wiring and lighting for the Helath Centre. The second last picture shows the Surinam Bridge which was washed away during a recent flood. The bottom picture shows a rescue on Mt Kanagoi on Kar Kar Island following a kidnapping of health staff from Gaubin Hospital.
We have many more pictures showing the many ways in which the helicopter is utilised on humanitarian services not only in the Madang Province, but other provinces throughout Papua New Guinea.