A significant maternal death rate in the remote New Ireland Province is something else he said he “has to come to terms with”.

Dr Slonim and his primary school teacher wife, Gayle, have been planning their four-month stint in Papua New Guinea for a year.

“We just thought it would never come around, but it’s a bit scary too.”

The couple have volunteered to work with the medical aid organisation Australian Doctors International, which works in partnership with Papua New Guinea’s provincial government.

They said they had always wanted to do “something different like this”, but were not sure how.

The couple, who have spent three decades servicing the Corowa community, have just returned from working on an outstation in Arnhem Land.

Their priority was a combination of travel and adventure and the chance to “make a difference” in poorly serviced, underprivileged places.

They will spend four months in the remote tropical island region — which has just seven doctors for 160,000 people —in the country’s far north-east.

Their job will be to carry out health patrols to rural communities, travelling with a team of provincial and district health staff who will carry out eye, dental and sexual health work and community health education.

Dr Slonim said there was little they could do in providing the sort of first-world care that could tackle high maternal death rates.

“We can’t do caeserarians or do blood tranfusions and things like that,” he said.

“That’s going to be the biggest challenge, that there’s so much we could do if we actually had medications and basic equipment and basic conditions.

“Australian Doctors International is a very supportive organisation doing some amazing things,” Dr Solnim said.

“Many hours will be spent educating the health workers from the local village right through to the larger town.”