A hospital cannot run without water

A FEW days ago, water supply to the Mt Hagen Hospital stopped.
There was no notice from Water PNG to tell us how long this disruption would last although it had previously promised that it would do so.
We had completely used up our reserves overnight and the next morning, supply was still not restored.
We had no reserves so our hospital manager went to the Water PNG office where he saw a number of men sitting around saying they could not do anything as they had no power.
When our manager asked what they had done about that, they replied that they reported it two days earlier.
Our manager then went to the PNG Power office and after about an hour, agreement was reached that the hospital must have water to provide essential services.
Our manager was assisted by a caring and competent woman named Rose who promised a team would be sent to the Water PNG site within an hour.
Our manager then returned to Water PNG to ensure that they knew a PNMG Power team would be coming over to fix the problem.
By 2pm, there was still no water.
Our manager went back to PNG power to be told that they had gone to Water PNG twice.
On the first visit, they found the gates locked and no one around.
No one had bothered to stay for the repairs. This attitude is unbelievable.
A hospital cannot run without power or water. Without them, surgery stops, lives are endangered, wards cannot be cleaned, sewers start filling up, staff cannot wash their hands before dressing wounds.
A hospital cannot be closed so staff struggled on.
In this whole saga it seems noone really cares, except Rose from PNG Power who did follow up with a call after the linesmen were finally let into the Water PNG site and quickly fixed the problem.
Our sincere thanks to you, Rose.

Dr Pa Ipa
Mt Hagen