2 more health staff positive

The National Main Stories
Five working in public health lab test positive

By LULU MARK
TWO more health workers in Port Moresby have tested positive for Covid-19, as the country’s biggest hospital in the city scales down services in an effort to contain the transmission.
Of the 19 confirmed cases so far in the country, 12 are from Port Moresby, three from Western, two from East New Britain, and one each from Morobe and Eastern Highlands.
The two cases reported yesterday were both health workers.
Case 18, a 53-year-old man, has a known respiratory illness and had a fever, cough and shortness of breath.
Case 19, a 39-year-old man, is a medical officer who was tested positive after complaining of a fever.
Acting Health secretary Dr Paison Dakulala yesterday expressed concern over the seven health workers recently tested positive for Covid-19.
Since last Thursday, five working in the Central Public Health Laboratory (CPHL) located within the Port Moresby General Hospital had tested positive.
They have been isolated at the Rita Flynn Court medical facility.
“My concern is the most recent cases in the past five days have been of health care workers.
“(They) have a culture of seeking medical attention when they
experiencing illness,” Dakulala said.
“I cannot say that a large percentage of our population have the same habits.
“We have symptomatic people in our communities who are not staying home but being socially active. We need people to (come) for testing.”
Hospital chief executive officer Dr Paki Molumi said a breast cancer patient who died last Monday, July 13, was found to have the Covid-19.
Molumi said because of her death, and the isolation of the five health workers working in the laboratory (CPHL) after testing positive, there was a need to “heighten the hospital’s infection control measures”.
“We need to scale down services, (and) we are going to emergency mode as of today (yesterday) so that we could clean up the entire hospital,” he said.
Molumi said the scale-down exercise would include elective surgeries, general non-emergency outpatient and dental services.
Services such as children’s outpatient, obstetrics and gynecology would continue normally.
He said 500 to 600 patients turned up at the hospital for these services daily.
Hospital director medical service Dr Kone Sabi said: “We are scaling down activities in the laboratory so it makes sense that we also need to scale down other activities (clinical services) because all of our clinical services are based on laboratory and image services.”
He advised residents of Port Moresby to “stay away from the hospital unless you really need to come because we are a cluster at the moment”.

12 comments

  • Peter O’Neil should be blamed for playing politics with covid 19. Even though he knew very well that people have been and are still dying all over the world, he appeared on several front-page news few weeks back mockingly forcing Marape to stop this so called unnecessary lock downs which he claimed were causing suffering on our people.
    We now have a death and increased in covid case so now what?? He will appear again to mock government to pull its socks up?

    Peter O’Neil let me be frank here! The world has not found a cure on this virus yet hence we as a country should have limited movement including strong control on our normal way of life until such time a cure is found.

  • The current Govt of PM James Marape has failed the people of PNG in dealing with COVID-19 as it is not doing what it is supposed to be doing over the last 6 months (Jan 20 – Jun 20). the following issues are threatening PNG citizens.

    1. PM James Marape, Controller Manning and Secretary Dakulala kept lying to the nation over the past 6 months that there is no community transmission. Lack of proper knowledge, resulting in poor advice giving rise to improper direction, compromising the health of PNGeans.

    2. All our health facilities do not have the necessary, equipment, materials etc to deal with an outbreak.

    3. All our front line workers are still at great risk of contracting the disease because their safety has been compromised given the apparent lack of Government support, as can be seen with the recent cases from our front line health workers.

    4. The COVID 19 SOE team, the Health Department and Ministry including other scientific, medical or research organisations really do not have a better or clear understanding of COVID19. Our doctors and experts are not conducting any research to determine how the disease can be developed, spread and contained in PNG (local context). So much dependent on foreign news, information and advice. Dept of Health is failing to initiate this research or fact finding.

    5. The number of people tested is very low. Less than 5500 people were tested out of around 10 million people in PNG with 19 confirmed cases. Test the next 5000 people and you will get another 20 or 30 confirmed cases. The Govt need to test atleast 2 million people nationwide (different age groups) in order to determine the level and mode of infection and transmission in PNG context

    6. The state of COVID19 pandemic in PNG does not reflect the 3 COVID19 models used by WHO and the rest of the world to determine or predict the level of transmission. The 3 models respectively predicted that PNG should by now have infections levels in the tens of thousands, but this is not the case at this moment and the SOE Controller and Secretary Dakulala appeared so confused with outcomes from the 3 models. Something is very wrong here.

    Therefore, I conclude that the Marape-Steven Government is not doing enough to manage this pandemic and they should be equally blamed for their failure.

  • Declare another SOE or if that is going to be too drastic economically, than do the following while people can still go to work and attend classes;

    1. Close down all social clubs and gathering places or if they are to remain open, get all
    employees and guests wear face masks and practice distancing.
    2. Make wearing of face masks compulsory while out and about. If anyone is caught
    running around without face masks, he or she must be locked up and fined a penalty
    fee of say K200.00.
    3. Ban all drinking and partying within residential areas.
    4. Ban all traditional, customary, political and other social gatherings except religious. 5. Ban the sale of beatlenut again, maybe for good.

    Start taking action again now before it gets out of hand!

  • Why scaling down on health workers, Its their profession, don’t undermine them, Mr. Acting Health Sec. They have made commitment to the people, country and lord that they will stand for. I commend you health workers, go on and protect yourselves and others in times of need. Covid has not kill anyone in PNG as yet, but other sickness is continuing to kill so we need your help.
    Jehovah will away care for you.

  • Mr Molumi and his deputy, Health Minister, Health Secretary and the SOE Commander have all failed terribly.
    Swap conducted on a dead body is illegal. It was done without authority from the deceased’s family and the Hospital personnel must be questioned why it is done after death. Why would not they do their swap tests when the deceased was still alive?
    One of the hospital staff said “it was a law”, since when did this become a law to do swap tests on deceased people? Is there any clause in the SOE rules that stipulates it being a law?
    These big dogs need to be questioned!

  • A lot of people in malarious areas have grown up taking chloroguine for malaria. Most young people now were exposed to chloroquine when it was given as malaria prophylaxis to their pregnant mothers.
    Hydroxychloroquine is still widely used in first-world countries for rheumatological joint diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and SLE.
    Although effectiveness of chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment is doubtful at the moment there is some basis for prophylaxis.
    Frontline health workers in outbreak areas should be taking chloroquine as a preventive measure

  • it was said this morning that two high school students where positive. and can you guys tell the general public which high school is this is so the general public is aware.

  • We cannot blame anyone to the increase of CoVid-19 we have been too ignorant to adhere to the safety measures consistently given to us. We call our country as a Christian country why not we show the world the great God we are serving? If he has saved us before he will save us again . Stop blaming our good government and stop all those non-sense kneel down and pray because the Government won’t save you but God will.

  • Are the health workers in POMGEN using/given the right suitable safety wear..???

    LOCK DOWN AGAIN!!

  • Listen Guys, be matured to understand that this death is NOT COVID 19, its a simple cancer and the doctors and media are jumping the guns., We PNG will not die for this diseases. The current cases are simple Flue and Running noise that we have here 90 years ago. Tired of reading and hearing about the COVID 19 anymore.. Enough of this Lock downs as it bring more suffering to people……

  • more peoples’ livelihoods will be affected by the covid-19 protocol/measures than the disease itself. We accept that covid-19 is here to stay but the government must strike a balance between the health risks and the impending economic failure. One will ultimately affect the other.

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