Funding delay likely to force Sepik health cuts

By GYNNIE KERO
THE East Sepik Health Authority may scale down on its operations starting today, acting chief executive Mark Mauludu says.
Mauludu said this was because the hospital had not received funding for the final quarter of the year.
“The situation at Wewak hospital is that we have not received funding for the last three months,” he said.
December makes it four.
“The year is almost over and we do not want to see this over-commitment become a burden for us next year,” he said.
“Therefore, if the Government cannot give us funding for this last quarter, then it will become evident to us to scale down services starting on Monday (today).”
Mauludu said services at the hospital that could be affected were “non-emergency areas”.
“For instance people coming to the outpatient with minor problems, we might start turning them away, except for emergencies only,” he said.
Mauludu said for the remaining quarter of this year, the hospital was supposed to have received about K1 million.
“Every month we are supposed to be receiving about K200,000. So it should be almost K1 million for the four months. We were trying to get the Department of Health to negotiate with Department of Finance and Treasury to see that happens in terms of releasing funds. But now that the Health Department is being locked out of the office, that is making it worse for us to see anything happening in the next couple of weeks.” he said.