Australian Broadcasting Corporation

FOUR CORNERS
Investigative TV journalism at its best.

TRANSCRIPT
Program Transcript
Read the program transcript of Matthew Carney's report "Sick No Good".

Reporter: Matthew Carney

Date: 14/08/2006

MATTHEW CARNEY: It's one of the most dangerous cities in the world. A place of lawless suburbs and impoverished settlements controlled by urban gangs or raskols.

Crime, rape reflects the quality of, sort of, leadership we have.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Papua New Guinea's capital, Port Moresby, is the ideal setting for the spread of AIDS - an epidemic fuelled by violence, unsafe sex, and prostitution.

They come out from the settlements.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Yeah, yeah?

Basically, it's a, it's a very big trade, you know. If we, we have young girls hanging around, the risk of them getting HIV/AIDS is very high.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Papua New Guinea is sliding towards a disaster - an epidemic of African proportions. It's estimated there are 100,000 people infected so far. Proportionally, that's 20 times the level in Australia. Unless effective action is taken to halt the disease, the country's in danger of losing its next generation. And PNG's already faltering economy could be destroyed. Australia may have to take the fallout.

Tonight, on Four Corners, we examine the epidemic on our doorstep, and investigate how sorcery and grinding poverty, gang culture and a big-man mentality are making AIDS a frightening reality in Papua New Guinea.

The alarming problem for PNG is that it has one of the fastest growing infection rates in the world. To understand why, you have to come to the settlements and suburbs like Gerehu. Here, male attitudes towards sex are at the heart of this rapid transmission.

Gerehu used to be a decent suburb in Port Moresby, but now the outer areas are controlled by the 585 raskol gang. The police rarely venture into these streets. Unemployment is rife, and crime is the major occupation.

MORGAN: Nothing to do. We just, day and night, we just do like this, play cards and roam around the streets, smoking marijuana. Nothing, nothing good in our community, no government services, so we stay the same old life we're doing it. Every single night.

MATTHEW CARNEY: These men are members of the 585 gang. And, like many people in this program, they didn't use their real names. In raskol gangs, it's a sign of status to have many sexual partners. They haven't had an AIDS educator in these streets. And these men believe condoms aren't essential in the fight against AIDS.

MORGAN: Sometimes I can't trust them, I use condom. Sometimes I trust them, I use flesh to flesh.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Flesh to flesh?

MORGAN: Yeah.

MATTHEW CARNEY: What's flesh to flesh?

MAN: It's like meat to meat.

MORGAN: Like, without using any protection.

MATTHEW CARNEY: How do you know they don't have AIDS or HIV?

MORGAN: Yeah, that's the - that's the main question that we can't answer.

MATTHEW CARNEY: They also believe that it's the women who are more likely to spread the disease.

MAN: Fluid coming out from the women. It's 110 per cent. Woman easily get AIDS.

MAN: Than men, eh?

MORGAN: Yeah, men are 95 per cent.

MAN: So, women are maybe 100 per cent?

MORGAN: 110 per cent.

MAN: Yeah, 10 per cent extra.

MORGAN: It's 10 per cent extra.

MAN: Yeah, it is, yeah.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The next day they took us to the scene of some of their crimes.

MORGAN: This place is a main car park, hideout. Boys steal cars, come put it, change plate numbers. They go robbing, they come back, throw the cars here.

PHILIP: The system just, like, failed us, you know, just dropped us out. And, plus, because our parents not working, and so, you know, we learn we have to turn to crime.

MATTHEW CARNEY: So, it's like a revenge on the system?

PHILIP: Yeah, like, it's - yeah, it's more or less revenge. But it's more to do, with our, our day-to-day survival.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Part of the raskol gang culture is sexual violence. When these men do a carjacking, a house break-in, or an armed robbery, rape can be part of the crime.

Have you raped girls?

MORGAN: Yeah.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Why?

MORGAN: Because - to show off.

MATTHEW CARNEY: To show off?

MORGAN: Yeah.

MATTHEW CARNEY: To show that you're a big man?

MORGAN: No, girls.

MATTHEW CARNEY: To show off to the girls, you raped them?

MORGAN: Yeah.

MATTHEW CARNEY: To show off to them?

MORGAN: Yeah, to show off.

MATTHEW CARNEY: That - what, to show that you're a man, or - - -

MORGAN: Sometimes boys, you know, they drink, drink, eh? They walk around, they see a girl, they go to a house, they raid a house and they see a mother or a girl. Yes. Get them up. Rape them up, something like that.

MATTHEW CARNEY: And does everyone do this?

MORGAN: Most people? Yeah, Papua New Guineans most.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Why do think they do it? Why?

MORGAN: I don't know.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Morgan served 5 years in jail, not for the rape, but for armed robbery. Most of the men in this part of Gerehu have served time inside. Prison is a high risk setting for HIV that also threatens the communities they come back into.

MORGAN: Inside, it's life, it's hard life. You must be strong in mind. Sometimes get worried, Sometimes no food. Sometimes people, you know, put knife in - man to man, like this.

MATTHEW CARNEY: So, they have man to man sex?

MORGAN: Yeah, I've been through that.

MATTHEW CARNEY: You've been raped?

MORGAN: Yeah.

MATTHEW CARNEY: A man tried to - - -

MORGAN: No, no. I - I've been doing this to some, you know, boys.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Oh, you did it to other boys.

MORGAN: Yeah, other boys.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Yeah. Did you wear a condom when you did it?

MORGAN: No.

MATTHEW CARNEY: I mean, do you think that men have sex with men - are they gay or not?

MORGAN: Some are not the gay, some are like normal men.

MATTHEW CARNEY: A third of all women in PNG have been subject to sexual assault. The girls of Gerehu not only have to battle poverty, but also the sexual violence that surrounds them.

Ray lives in these makeshift houses with 20 of her relatives. There is no electricity or water here and the family gets by on a few dollars a day. Ray's neighbour was gang-raped recently, but she says her family protects her.

RAY: Sometimes, like, we hold knives or things like that, or fight against them to protect ourself. Or Dad and them, we chase them away. Chase them, because we got men people, is there to - they're there to chase the boys away.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Talking openly about sex in PNG has been taboo. Ray and her friends say the boys don't use condoms. They'd like to know how to use female condoms so they could protect themselves.

RAY: But girls, they are scared to use the girls condoms sometimes. Some of them they don't, they don't know how to use that condom. So they are scared to use it. Sometimes they don't use it, girls.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Why are they scared - 'cause they're shy, or - - -

RAY: No - No, it's - it's they think, like, it will go in and just stay there,
it won't come back, so - - -

WOMAN: Sometimes, yeah, that's true. What she's saying is true.

MATTHEW CARNEY: So, you think it will just get stuck?

RAY: Yeah.

WOMAN: Yeah. It's hard to explain to you because it's girls stuff.

MATTHEW CARNEY: But it's not just the broken down communities in Port Moresby that are the breeding grounds for AIDS. It's also the bars and brothels that cater for the top end of town. It's been confirmed to Four Corners that at least two members of the national parliament have AIDS.

It's Pacific Night at this nightclub and brothel, and, as a prize, the management is giving away a girl for the evening. Landowners, politicians, expats and professionals frequent this place.

We were invited in by this man. Jerry calls himself a hostess supervisor, but most people would call him a pimp. He says the sexual health of the girls is not his business.

JERRY: It depends on each individual. How you look after yourself, that's you.

MATTHEW CARNEY: So, you don't take any responsibility for their looking after, making sure they don't get AIDS or HIV?

JERRY: Well, that's one of the things that, working me, like, I worry but then the AIDS awareness is not that really effective around here, so that I don't push it. But then sometimes there's certain times when I'm in a good mood, I just tell them, "Hey, use condoms. Use condoms. If you want to do it, use condom." I just tell them straight and there's certain times, like I'm so tired I don't have the time to talk to them, "Go for it." I'm so busy there's no time.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The most recent study on prostitution in PNG found 17 per cent of sex workers are HIV positive. But, astonishingly, Jerry tells his girls not to worry, there's a cure for AIDS.

JERRY: About this AIDS, I heard there's a cure around the place, with herbs around the city. People are discovering AIDS herbs, some liquid that you drink. Some root of some trees or - they do them, they boil them up, they do it up this medicine and then they pour them in the bottle. They sell them in the streets.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Later, one of the prostitutes showed us where she and 17 other girls lived. When not working they're kept in this dormitory behind the brothel. They're only allowed out once a week.

A week later, when the police took us on a tour of the AIDS hot spots, the first place they took us to was the same nightclub.

Prostitution is illegal in PNG but the police are unable or unwilling to do much about it.

You know there is prostitution going on here, why can't you arrest them?

INSPECTOR KOPI: It's quite hard.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Why?

INSPECTOR KOPI: The reason is many times the owner of the property, he never reported a case to police.

MATTHEW CARNEY: This is Ward 4B - the unofficial AIDS ward at the Port Moresby General Hospital. Patients only come here when they're close to death. They have to share their fate with tuberculosis sufferers. There is no dedicated AIDS ward. There are 16,000 confirmed HIV positive people in PNG. Experts say many more are undetected, and the real figure exceeds 100,000.

DR BENARE BUN, CHAIRMAN, PARLIAMENTARY AIDS COMMITTEE: We are seeing an average of 200 to 250 new cases per month in Papua New Guinea. New cases. Now, that's frightening. Very frightening indeed, Matthew. And if we are going at that rate, I mean, you know, we could even go as 50 per cent of our population gone and, I mean, I don't want to imagine what's gonna happen after that.

MATTHEW CARNEY: PNG's health system can't even cope at current levels of the epidemic. Sister Elizabeth Waken is in charge of Ward 4B and she routinely runs out of basic medicines and supplies.

SISTER ELIZABETH WAKEN: I don't have enough bedsheets, I don't have enough masks. I don't even have enough drugs. Sometimes we run out of crystalline penicillin. Those main common medicines we are always running out.

MATTHEW CARNEY: And what about just, you know, soap and washing up fluids?

SISTER ELIZABETH WAKEN: Soap and washing up, I get little bit from the hospital, not much.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Sister Waken can't get enough staff to work in this ward, so it's left to the families of the sick to care for their loved ones. The hospital can't even afford to feed the patients.

Joseph Narop is from Madang and is dying of AIDS. His wife Dana and child have been living under his bed for four weeks.

So, when did your husband first get sick?

DANA: It's a long time.

MATTHEW CARNEY: A long time ago?

DANA: Yes.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Yeah. Do you know how he got sick at all?

DANA: No, sorry.

MATTHEW CARNEY: When Joseph dies Dana will lose the family's income. She's scared about the future.

Do you think you may get sick from this disease?

DANA: Yes.

MATTHEW CARNEY: There are enormous amounts of fear and stigma about AIDS in PNG.

Lewis Paling was a major in the army for 25 years but he hasn't received a visitor since he was admitted two weeks ago.

So, how are you feeling, Lewis?

LEWIS PALING: I feel marvellous today.

MATTHEW CARNEY: You feel good today?

LEWIS PALING: I'm about to talk to you now, so...

MATTHEW CARNEY: Better than most days, hey?

LEWIS PALING: Oh, my goodness, yes.

MATTHEW CARNEY: When Paling's family found out he had AIDS, his wife divorced him and the rest of his family disowned him. That's the case with many AIDS patients here.

Did people accept you when you were declared yourself? Did most people accept you?

LEWIS PALING: No, not my family.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Your family didn't accept your AIDS?

LEWIS PALING: No, they put me right out.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Even in death, AIDS patients are discriminated against. The Port Moresby Morgue manager, Pirika Koivi, often finds AIDS bodies dumped at the hospital or at the morgue gates. Some families won't claim the bodies because they can't deal with the shame associated with AIDS. Others believe the bodies are still infectious, and the morgue doesn't have the money to bury them.

PIRIKA KOIVI: No, those who die of HIV, what we normally do is we pack them up. Like, one is already in there with the black plastic.

MATTHEW CARNEY: So, you put them - you wrap them up in bags?

PIRIKA KOIVI: Wrap them up to protect the body from other fresh bodies that are coming in, from getting the side effect of maybe liquid from the body and waste from the body. So for those reasons.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The morgue has the capacity for 60 bodies but it's overflowing with 200 corpses, many of them AIDS victims. Koivi just hopes that a church group or charity will pay for a mass burial soon.

The morgue's cooling system can't cope, so the bodies are decomposing.

So, in this tray here you have how many? There looks like there's 10-20 babies there.

PIRIKA KOIVI: 22 babies are currently occupying this one tray.

MATTHEW CARNEY: And that's because of a storage problem again? You have to build them up like this?

PIRIKA KOIVI: That's right. It's a problem, yes. It's not safe for the body but we have no choice.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The politicians acknowledge they have failed in their response to Papua New Guinea's AIDS epidemic. For 15 years this disease was left unmanaged and given every opportunity to spread. Just two weeks ago the government announced a national strategic plan to counter the AIDS epidemic.

HEALTH MINISTER: Responded late but I think that we're responding responsibly. But I think there's a long way and a lot more we can do and I think we will be doing it. The capacity is one area that worries me a little bit, we just don't have the capacity within our hospitals, we don't have the capacity within our health centres.

MATTHEW CARNEY: It's in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea that lie the greatest challenges in dealing with the AIDS epidemic. Its vast and rugged geography, low literacy rates and the hundreds of different languages are some obstacles. It's social events like this sing-sing that also pose dangers. The weakening of traditional laws means sexual behaviour is less restrained. Once polygamy was only for tribal leaders but now anyone can practise it.

AIDS is spreading fast in the Highlands and this is the reason why - the Highlands Highway. It stretches 700 kilometres from the north coast up into the resource rich Highlands. It connects about half the country's population, transporting the virus widely.

Mary is a 15-year-old prostitute. She works in one of the many guest houses along the highway. She's a product of the breakdown of traditional and family ties. On an average day she sees five men.

MARY: We stand by, all of us. When these customers come in to buy beer or to stay here they would do the act. Now we are based here and fed by the owner of the place.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Eight other girls work here with Mary. Most of them are from broken families. Prostitution has been their only means of survival. 15-year-old Jessica started working when she was just 10. Her stepfather cast her out of the family home.

JESSICA: When my father died my mother ended up in a new marriage. So there was no-one to look after me.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Mary too was forced to leave home after her father died. She says if she returns to her village she'll be killed.

MARY: I don't have a home. All I can do is stay on the street, look for men and get money.

MATTHEW CARNEY: There is a free condom machine here, but it ran out of supplies some time ago. The girls say they know about AIDS, but they haven't ever been tested.

MARY: I'm scared of the dangers of HIV. Two of my friends have died of it and that has scared me but as I have told you this is my lifeline.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The bar next door is where the girls get some of their customers. It's only midday, but already a bunch of truck drivers are well into a drinking session. They've come from the coastal city of Lae.

DAVID: We normally drink about 18 bottles. That's - the beer is containing about 4.5 per cent, so that's over-alcoholic. So, when they get drunk, they feel like having sex. So, sometimes they do have condoms - emergency. But sometimes, otherwise, they don't have it, they just do it, all the way.

MATTHEW CARNEY: This drinker, David, says a mixture of alcohol and illiteracy is fuelling the AIDS crisis in PNG.

DAVID: So, that's why HIV is kind of a burden, bushfire in Papua New Guinea. And we believe that in some 10 years, we will be looking like Uganda.

MATTHEW CARNEY: You'll look like Uganda?

DAVID: Yeah, we believe in that. Some people believe in that.

MATTHEW CARNEY: So why don't you think people change their ideas and their mentality? Why don't they stop?

DAVID: I think they'd probably do that if - if they were educate them in languages possess - in their languages. Because most of them are not educated.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Later, the girls ply their trade on the highway. They pick up truck and bus drivers. It's estimated there are thousands of women on this highway who exchange sex for money, food, or a bed for the night. It's an efficient way to transmit HIV all over the highlands.

Where do you drive from?

CONRAD: From Lae to Hagen.

MATTHEW CARNEY: How often?

CONRAD: Um...my lifetime.

MATTHEW CARNEY: All your lifetime you've been driving?

CONRAD: Right, right.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Do you see, like - do many of the truckers, they like to pick up girls on the way?

CONRAD: Yes. When they stop, when they stop my truck, I used to stop there and pick them up, and drop off them.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Conrad says he uses condoms because he has a wife and children at home. He says other drivers don't.

Are they worried about HIV AIDS? Do they know about it?

CONRAD: When they drink beer, I don't think so. Because they cannot control
their minds, you see.

MATTHEW CARNEY: That's a situation this trucking company knows about. It's already lost two drivers to the disease. Apollas Yimbak is trying to educate the drivers about safe sex. With funds from AusAID, he's installing condom machines in high risk areas like this.

APOLLAS YIMBAK, PROVINCIAL AIDS COUNCIL: It is going to be devastating for the economy and the country, if we don't address it properly by now, you know. Because the epidemic is there, and, you know, more and more people are infected and it's going to be a big problem in the country.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Some studies are estimating that by 2020, PNG could lose a third of its workforce. At 75 years old, Sister Rose Bernard is one of the pioneers in the fight against AIDS in the highlands. 20 years ago, when the disease started to take a hold in Africa, Sister Rose knew it was going to hit PNG with the same devastation. Back then, no-one listened. Since then, Sister Rose has been travelling all over the Western Highlands educating people about AIDS. Much of the time she offers care to those suffering from AIDS. She also offer acceptance to those like Patrick who are seen as outcasts.

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: How are you? Feeling no good? Sick?

PATRICK: Ah?

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: You're sick?

PATRICK: Yeah, pretty sick. My knees are really weak and it's difficult to stand up. And my head, the brain feels like popping out. And it's very hard to stand up.

MATTHEW CARNEY: When Patrick first started to get sick from AIDS, he spent hundreds of dollars consulting a traditional medicine man. He believed he was going to be cured, but he only got worse.

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: It's desperation. They're looking for some type of healing, so they grasp onto anything that's offered to them. Because these people with the herbal medicines, some of them are only trying to earn money themselves. And so they're selling these bottles with some kind of concoctions, different kind of concoctions, for about 50 kina each. And people, they're telling them that this will cure everything.

MATTHEW CARNEY: We're on our way to a remote village called Kar Tai Nim. Sister Rose says she was the first white woman to visit the village.

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: This place, I would have never found it if I didn't have somebody guiding me to it. You don't even know these roads exist until you start working with the people.

MATTHEW CARNEY: It is in these isolated areas where people with AIDS have been known to be burnt or buried alive.

In Kar Tai Nim, Sister Rose has had some success in countering ignorance and fear. In fact, she's convinced the villagers here to build their own AIDS day care centre. But Sister Rose constantly has to reinforce AIDS awareness here. Some are hearing the message for the first time.

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: I asked if you know anything about AIDS and you said you don't know. OK, this virus comes into the body of someone who has AIDS. This virus attacks the body's defence system. How can you get this sickness? Do you know how you get this sickness?

MAN: I don't know.

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: Of course you know.

MAN: Sinful acts.

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: That's it. If you have sex with a man or a woman who has this sickness, right, you'll get this sickness.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The education is crucial for another reason. Sorcery and witchcraft have been on the increase in the Western Highlands.

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: Sorcery is a great problem. People are blamed for the death of other people. And even with HIV AIDS, people, some of them will not accept the fact that somebody died of this virus, and they will claim sorcery.

MATTHEW CARNEY: And, so, what happens then? If they claim sorcery, what does that mean?

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: Oh, that means some people are going to be killed for being responsible for the death of that person. Many innocent, innocent people are being killed.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Sister Rose has also come to see how one of her patients is coping. Veronica contracted HIV from her husband. He died a year ago, leaving her with two children. Sister Rose is concerned the village is not helping her enough.

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: She gets food sometimes. Sometimes the people give her food, sometimes she doesn't get the food. She's hungry many times.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The discrimination against Veronica comes from the culture. When her husband died, she lost many of her rights in the village. And that's made worse because she comes from another tribe.

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: They're just thinking about themselves. They have their own work to do, they have their own families to look after, and they're not bothering with her. And so there's a lot of education, still, that needs to be done, you see.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Sister Rose says it's the women who are bearing the brunt of this epidemic. She's found 90 per cent of HIV positive women have contracted AIDS from their husbands. Marriage has become a high risk setting.

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: When we ask who the high-risk people, it's not so much the sex workers, I feel, as the wives. The - the married woman. She's very much at risk now.

MATTHEW CARNEY: And why is that?

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: Well, because their husbands have many sexual partners. And even though the wife is staying home, being very faithful, her husband is not. And, so, by going around with many sexual partners, you know how easy it is to pick up the virus here, since we know there are so many people living with the virus already. So - so, women like Veronica really have to suffer. They have to carry that burden. And Veronica has forgiven her husband.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Veronica just hopes she'll live long enough to be able to care for her children.

Back at her clinic, Sister Rose has done about 500 rapid HIV blood tests. She's found 12 per cent of them to be positive. Vatican policy is condoms have no place in the fight against AIDS, but Sister Rose takes a practical view about the use of them.

SISTER ROSE BERNARD: I do not promote them. But, as a counsellor, I have an obligation of letting the clients know the whole message, all about condoms. I have to teach about it. First of all, I don't make the decision. They make the decision, and so if they feel they really need a condom and they ask me for it,
and I feel, within that counselling situation, that it is right to give it, I give it to them.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Mount Hagen is the largest town in the Highlands, and it's here we found a traditional medicine man selling a cure for AIDS.

So that's the one, that's the bark tree that can cure AIDS?

MEDICINE MAN: Yes many people buy it. I know they're cured because I don't see them again.

MATTHEW CARNEY: He says he sources the treatment from sacred sites deep in the jungle.

MEDICINE MAN: They have to take a course of it and mix it up in water for about six or seven days and eventually they get cured.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Hours down the highway from Mount Hagen is the remote town of Mingende. At the local St Joseph Hospital, the nurses are prepared for the disease. The staff have been trained to administer Anti-Retroviral Therapy - a drug regime that can dramatically lengthen the life of AIDS patients. They only have three patients on ART, but they need supplies for 30 more. Sarah is one of them, and she's entering the final stages of AIDS. She'll die soon if she doesn't get ART.

But her prognosis is not that good, obviously, without the drugs?

SISTER ROSEMARY BUNDO, HIV AIDS COORDINATOR: No.

MATTHEW CARNEY: What do you think?

SISTER ROSEMARY BUNDO, HIV AIDS COORDINATOR: Like I said earlier, if we access those antiretroviral drugs, then it would be a boost for us to treat our patients.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Last month, they lost three patients because the drugs they ordered didn't arrive.

SISTER ROSEMARY BUNDO, HIV AIDS COORDINATOR: I told them that we have this ART,
I mean drug, available, so "you will be put on that sometime sooner". But the problem is we don't have enough, so, I mean, I sound like promising to them. And then seeing them dying like that, sometimes I feel that I'm the one to be blamed, or I regret and all this.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Sister Kinga Czerwonka, the nurse in charge of the hospital, went to Port Moresby on a mercy mission to save her patients. She came back with only one bottle of ART.

SISTER KINGA CZERWONKA: You know, I was really frustrated. You know, actually, the people who had the drugs in the cupboards and could easily open the cupboard and give it to me, they felt frustrated too, because they are just part of the system.

MATTHEW CARNEY: PNG has enough ART for 3,000 patients. We found boxes of the drugs in this warehouse run by the Department of Health. The World Health Organisation's Global Fund purchased the drugs, but they have been sitting here while AIDS patients are dying. There are now 600 patients on ART in PNG, but Four Corners has learned there is more than a thousand people urgently needing the drugs, and thousands more who will need ART in the near future.

SISTER KINGA CZERWONKA: Being in a situation that we don't have the drugs to prescribe for them, it's heartbreaking because knowing that the drugs are lying somewhere on the shelves and soon will be expiring. And maybe if the situation that one day they might be, half of them might be dumped somewhere in a ditch not being used and here are people dying, it's really something which have to be done in this country.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The Health Minister couldn't offer a clear answer as to why the drugs aren't getting through.

HEALTH MINISTER: I'm not a doctor, you know, first and foremost. I have to be advised by the staff that I have within the Department and the secretaries and those people responsible during the AIDS Council as well. And I'm told that we have adequate supplies of AVRs here, and the reason why it can't be released is because there has to be proper training and counselling in place in these areas. Now, if Mingende Hospital has the qualification, have their training, I can't see the reason why it can't be distributed.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Some of the answers in how to deal effectively with PNG's AIDS epidemic can be found here in Gorobe. It's much the same as any settlement in Port Moresby. 3,000 people live here in chronic poverty and unemployment. But unlike Gerehu, which is dominated by the 585 gang, Gorobe has turned itself around in terms of HIV awareness and rape.

HILDA: HIV is a disease that somebody carries around and passes on to somebody through intercourse, sex.

ROSE: If you use the condom, stay with one partner, you will not get this disease.

MATTHEW CARNEY: That is largely due to Maura Mea. Five years ago, she came out publicly and declared she was HIV positive, a brave step in PNG. Maura Mea lost her husband, Max, and two babies to AIDS.

MAURA MEA: These are my two babies' graves. My first baby was three-months-old, the second one was nine-months-old.

MATTHEW CARNEY: It was when the doctors refused to treat or even handle her dying baby son, she knew it was time to act against the discrimination.

MAURA MEA: They said, "Oh, you have HIV, so the child probably has AIDS, so we don't want to treat him."

MATTHEW CARNEY: So they didn't treat your babies at all?

MAURA MEA: They didn't treat him. So, we just sat there until the next morning when I came home, that baby died. And I just hated the nurses, it was like it - it was sort of like I felt that it was so cruel and mean, you know. He deserved to be treated like anybody else, and they just didn't do that.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Mea started the fight against the stigma of AIDS in her own community. She and her husband built a drop-in centre. Over time, they built relationships and established trust.

MAURA MEA: Once people get to trust you, that's when you begin to tell. You know, they come out more openly, and you can change people's attitudes by getting straight to the point.

MATTHEW CARNEY: And that's something she is still doing.

There hasn't been a rape in Gorobe in two years. Mea confronted the rapists herself, and started educating them.

MAURA MEA: I started talking to them, and I said, "Look at me," you know? "We don't want all of you sitting here to be like me." So, you know, we want to save our community, and I think the message really got down there. I explained how if you were in the act of you know, gang rape, if you are involved in how HIV can be transmitted from one to the other. And they understood it clearly because I spoke in the local language. And even boys came and saw me themselves after, you know, when they had free times, and asked me to explain it. I always made my time available, so they come to my home. I always talk to them.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Mea has the firm support of all the leaders in Gorobe. They're building up self-esteem by engaging the community. They've started playing football again, and the competition has been expanded to include teams from other settlements in Moresby. But Gorobe is the exception. Mea sees the only hope for halting the spread of AIDS is for governments and aid groups to target the grassroots and help communities empower themselves.

MAURA MEA: It's all happening, so if our politicians and people, you know, in hierarchy who are making decisions, they don't act, I'm sorry, but there won't be any Papua New Guinea. Sometimes I feel so sad, and, you know - I mean, politicians, they talk - and what's all this lip service? We need them to come out and be the role models. Good, good, really good role models.

MATTHEW CARNEY: At the moment, the ever-increasing infection rate suggests the battle against AIDS in Papua New Guinea is being lost.

Please note: This transcript is produced by an independent transcription service. The ABC does not warrant the accuracy of the transcript.