Lapalama is about 4 hours walk or 5 minutes by MAF flight north of Kompiam and lies right on the edge of the deep forest. Lapalama is home to a large population and was once an impressive mission station connected to Kompiam by road.
A major tribal conflict spanning 18 years (1992 – 2010) and government neglect saw the once considerable facilities run down and parts of the station return to bush. In 2010 peace negotiations were successfully concluded and since then Lapalama has started to slowly rebuild its services.
Enga Baptist Health Services has since taken possession of one of the old mission houses. With help from Australian medical students, overseas donors and the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG), Lapalama is being developed into a major base for medical student training, particularly for final year PNG medical students.
The health center itself has been fully maintained and provided with 240v solar power, solar lights and fridge and a reliable water supply. Maintenance on staff housing was commenced in May 2017.
Walking the four-hour track between Lapalama and Kompiam is an important part of understanding rural health realities in PNG. For visitors, and specifically medical students, this journey demonstrates the challenges faced by patients who must walk long distances to reach care. It highlights what it means for a sick child to be carried to Kompiam, or for a heavily pregnant woman to make the same journey on foot, compared to the ease of road access in urban centers.
Every year, when final year medical students from UPNG arrive for their rural clinical rotation, they are expected to walk this track with their backpacks, spend a week at Lapalama, and then walk back to Kompiam. This experience gives them a true appreciation of the remoteness of PNG’s frontier territories and the resilience of the communities who live there.
If you would like to support the ongoing development of Lapalama, please visit our Donations page.