Bougainville Hospital will still charge medical fees, says director

By STEPHANIE ELIZAH
THE Buka General Hospital will continue to charge patients fees for medical care, acting director of medical services Dr Mathias Tovilu said.
He said the announcement by the government last week that all medical services by hospitals nationwide would be free to the public was not being implemented at Buka Hospital.
“We have followed up with the secretary for health in Port Moresby and what he has advised us is that all hospitals will function, will charge fees, as usual,” he said.
“There has been no direction given from the Health Department to provide free health services to the people.”
He said until then charges for hospital services would remain.
“Our position is that until we get clear directions from the department, we will not provide free services.
“Outpatient, X-ray and blood test charges of K2 will remain and all admissions in the
adult wards will pay a hospital fee of K10,” Tovilu said.
He said from a personal point of view, free health services at this stage would not solve the many problems, including understaffing, drug shortage and poor facilities that hospitals throughout the country, including Buka, faced.
Tovilu said if hospitals were to provide free health services, it would not be quality services because the hospitals would be regularly
short on medicines and funds.
“These days we buy medicines regularly from other sources because the supply of medicine through the normal government medical stores is not adequate and many times it does not arrive on time and they are always running out of stock.
“The money we get from charging hospital fees, once it ceases, is going to cause us a lot of problems because it will dry out the source of funds that we use to buy medicines,” he said.