Hospital receives support

By TONY PALME
THE Simbu government has given   K100,000 and  a new ambulance to the Mingende District Rural Hospital to ensure it continues to provide health services.
Governor Noah Kool, provincial administrator Joe Kunda Naur and the provincial health administration team made the presentations to the hospital staff on Oct 4.
The provincial government stepped in after the Catholic health facility shut down most of its operations last month.
Operation and staff salaries were not paid over two fortnights and doctors and nurses scaled down operations.
Simbu health administration’s principal health adviser Margaret Kaile said operations in the outpatient department had been scaled down and patients were advised to seek care in other  centres.
“We advised them to attend to serious or critical cases like giving out multi-resistant TB drugs, attending to HIV patients, doing counselling and testing and deliver babies,” Kaile said.
“The hospital is currently targeting the catchment areas.”
Mingende Catholic Hospital health secretary Elizabeth Koai was happy with the donations and thanked the provincial government for the timely assistance that provided much relief to the staff.
“The Catholic Health Services is at the frontline in delivering very important health services to the people of Chimbu,” Naur said.
“What we have given is our recognition of what the churches like the Catholic do in terms of health in the province.
“We want to maintain partnership with our service providers. We are always supporting the churches and will continue.”