Call to fix ward toilets

 By CLEMENT KAUPA

CANCER patients at Angau Hospital, in Lae, are using wards overflowing with human waste because toilets are blocked, a patient says.

“We asked the duty nurses three times but they told us to clean the toilets and wait,” a patient, who did not want to be named, said yesterday.

“It is now the second full day and nothing has happened yet.”

In desperation, a group of patients and their caregivers used an iron rod, fashioned into a hook at one end, and tried to pull up whatever was causing the blockage, but were unsuccessful, he said.

The laundry area outside the ablution facility is covered in water from the toilet and human excrement, a visit there revealed.

 “We asked them to call the hospital’s plumbing department but the plumber hasn’t come yet,” a caregiver, who declined to be named, said.

“Most cancer patients here have external sores and the situation here is extremely unhealthy for them.”

With 36 inpatients and a similar number of caregivers, the situation was critical and demanded immediate attention, the caregiver said.

A patient said able bodied patients went to other ward toilets but terminal cases confined to the beds were in a critical state.

Duty nurses were not available to comment.

The centre’s director, Dr John Niblett, was overseas.