Centres give drugs to hospital

By OGIA MIAMEL and LUKE KAMA
THE Mt Hagen General Hospital has been collecting surplus medicine and medical supplies from health centres to address the drug shortage situation at the hospital.
The hospital’s acting chief executive officer Dr Paulus Ripa said the health centres received their own supplies directly.
“Many of these are drugs they don’t need,” he said.
“That is why we have to go and bring them back. It is tedious work.”
The hospital had sent three weeks ago a list of supplies it needed to the pharmaceutical division of the Health Department but had not received anything.
“They said they will put some stuff together. But it’s three weeks. When we ask for these things, we need them now. By the time they supply, a lot of people will have died,” Ripa said.
“We can’t run the hospital without essential drugs and IV fluids and gloves and stuff.”
He said the labour wards at one time could not deliver babies because they had run out of gloves.
“We went to pharmacies and bought gloves there. We are spending money that we should use on other things,” Ripa said.
“That’s what we are doing at the moment. We are sending out this call, hoping that the Government will come good.”
Meanwhile, in Chimbu, the Sir Joseph Nombri Memorial Kundiawa General Hospital has been using funds from its trust account to buy medicines in the past three months.
Chief executive officer Dr Harry Poka told The National there was a shortage of medical supplies at the hospital.
He called on the Health and Finance departments to ensure that monthly operational funding for hospitals were released on time.