Dr Fredrick Charles: In his mother’s footsteps

Burnet’s PNG Country Director is helping bring quality healthcare to communities across Papua New Guinea.

Whether he’s working in the Burnet offices in  Port Moresby or on the road to some of Papua New Guinea’s most remote communities, Dr Fredrick Charles begins each day with the same question: how can he and his team help more people access the healthcare they need  to live healthier lives?

It’s a sense of purpose that began taking shape long before he became a doctor. Growing up in rural PNG, he watched his mother, a midwife, care for women in labour without even basic resources, including electricity. Those early experiences inspired a lifelong commitment 
to bringing quality healthcare within reach of every community.

Today, as Burnet’s PNG Country Director, Dr Charles is putting that commitment into practice across a wide range of priorities.  One of the most significant has been tackling drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). In partnership with PNG’s National Tuberculosis Program, the TB Alliance and the Australian Government, Burnet has helped introduce a new treatment regimen at two pilot sites. The all-oral BPaL/M regimen reduces treatment time from 18 months to just six – a breakthrough that is making treatment easier to complete and helping people return to their families, their work and their communities sooner.

“Eventually, we would like to see the treatment expanded to all provinces in Papua New Guinea,” says Dr Charles.

And the work doesn’t stop there. Tuberculosis will remain a major focus, but Dr Charles and his team also have an ambitious vision for the years ahead: expanding into new provinces, strengthening community-based TB and HIV services, improving care for mothers and babies, developing youth-friendly health services, and advancing efforts to reduce malaria and dengue.

The recent resurgence of polio in parts of Papua New Guinea has reinforced why this work matters. Strong health systems don’t just respond to outbreaks – they help prevent them.

With strong government leadership, community engagement and partner support, we can make PNG polio-free again, Dr Charles told ABC Radio’s Pacific Beat program.

It’s work made possible by people like you, who choose to stand alongside Papua New Guinea,  not only in moments of crisis, but in the steadfast work of building stronger health systems that will prevent the crises before they begin and serve generations to come.

Read how we support PNG's treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis