Doctors say a worsening health crisis in East Timor is causing hundreds of preventable deaths, including those of many children.
Their call for assistance coincides with the Federal Government’s decision to cut the aid budget to East Timor by $15 million this financial year.
It is early morning at the Bairo Pite Clinic in the capital Dili and there are already hundreds of patients waiting to see Dr Dan Murphy.
The former general practitioner from America’s Midwest came to the country 16 years ago with just one little bag, and has been here ever since.
During that time he has managed to do an awful lot with very few resources.
“There is really no access to anything near adequate healthcare. In every category in health, their numbers are worse than most of South East Asia,” Dr Murphy said.
“We don’t have very many meds [medications]. We don’t have very many diagnostic tools, so mostly we’re going by smoke and mirrors. You can’t do as well as you could if you had all the right tests.”
After Indonesia relinquished its control of East Timor in 1999 substantial aid began to flow.
In recent years, proceeds from oil and gas means there is more money in East Timor, but according to the United Nations, two-thirds of the population still lives in poverty and a third in severe poverty.
There are still billions of dollars worth of unexplored resources sitting in the Timor Sea. But as Australia and East Timor continue to wrangle over who owns the Greater Sunrise oilfield, these extra billions remain in the seabed and the living standard remains dire.
Dr Murphy and his team have become experts in diseases that most Australians may think have been consigned to history.
When five-year-old Paulo walks in with strange marks on his arms and face, Dr Murphy knows leprosy might be on the cards. He has already seen several cases recently.
“In the last month I think I’ve seen seven cases … though the district of Oecusse has over 500 registered cases,” Dr Murphy said.
Meanwhile, there is a ward full of tuberculosis patients and another packed with malnourished children.
We meet Ozmenia, who is four years old, but weighs just 6.7 kilograms.
“Certain times of the year there’s just not much to eat. Approximately half of the people are stunted which means they’re not as big as they should be for their age,” Dr Murphy said.
Malnutrition rates in East Timor are some of the worst in the world outside Africa.
Around 45 per cent of children under five here are underweight for their age.
High rate of maternal mortality
Up in the mountains of the Ermera District, women have walked for hours to see Dr Aida Goncalves and her team of midwives.
Every second day a woman in East Timor dies in childbirth – one of the highest maternal death rates in Asia.
Dr Goncalves does her best to convince women to seek out help when giving birth.
Her motivation to make a difference to these people’s lives is driven by tragedy close to home – the loss of three brothers to preventable illness.
“Two of my brothers died of diarrhoea, something in your country that doesn’t kill people, but here in East Timor it kills a lot of people,” Dr Goncalves said.
Back in Dili, 34-year-old father of three Tomas Pinto is seriously ill and could die at any moment.
Like many East Timorese, he had rheumatic fever when he was younger, a common illness here that can lead to lifelong heart trouble.
In Australia, a simple operation would fix the valve in his heart that has become dangerously narrow; however this is just one of the many operations not available in East Timor.
He cannot believe his luck when a lifeline from Australia is suddenly extended to him.
“I am so very grateful,” said Tomas. “I was the one person out of so many that God chose, from so many people. I’m just from a poor family.”
Foreign aid cuts hamper progress
Despite these dismal figures and their lack of facilities, the foreign aid budget to East Timor was reduced from around $112 million last financial year to around $96 million this year, a $15 million cut.
It comes in the wake of promises by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop that foreign aid in Australia’s region would be a priority.
Earlier this year, she said: “We are focusing on alleviating poverty; we are focusing on economic growth and empowering women and girls, better educational outcomes and better health outcomes in our region.”
World Vision CEO Tim Costello says his organisation had planned to begin a new million-dollar nutrition and child health program in East Timor in January next year.
“We had a project that is right in the zone of nutrition. It was with expectant mothers and mothers of child birth age and children under five, really attending to their nutrition,” he said.
However, after the NGO had $7 million cut from its funding in the May budget this program had to be shelved.
“When we are cutting [funds] in a place like East Timor it’s a very bad message. After all, Australia is still the second wealthiest country in the world on a per capita median basis,” Mr Costello said.
Watch Sophie McNeill’s report on Foreign Correspondent tonight at 8pm on ABC TV.