Doctor assaulted over child’s death

A SENIOR medical doctor at the Goroka Base Hospital was assaulted by relatives of a child who had died from leukemia on Tuesday.
Members of the National Doctors Association (NDA) serving at the hospital strongly condemned the attack yesterday in a media release.
The relatives of the deceased that assaulted the doctor were reportedly from Asaro in Daulo district, Eastern Highlands.
The statement said that relatives being frustrated over the long wait for a pathologist resulted in the death of their child attacked the doctor who declined to be named.
NDA members stated that in many cases reports may take six months to a year before the reports from Port Moresby were made available.
“Doctors at Goroka Base Hospital are placed under undue stress because of lack of proper functioning theatre for nearly a year and laboratory services which are not consistent.
“There are also shortages of basic medical drugs and equipment which are making it difficult to manage patients adequately,” the statement said.
It also revealed that they were undergoing major renovations in the hospital, there was a lot of stress placed on the doctors to perform clinical care with wards over-crowded at times.
They, however, pointed out that there were procedures in place to express grievances or raise queries by patients and their relatives saying the hospital management was the place to go.
“The doctors are trained to help patients and are doing their best, assaulting and threatening them as well as other health workers would only make them leave the province,” the statement said.
When the hospital chief executive officer Dr Joe Apa was contacted yesterday, the office attendant replied that the CEO was preparing to travel to Port Moresby and would not talk to anyone.
She referred The National to the office of director medical services Dr Kapiro Kendaura who according to his secretary was in a meeting and asked for the call to be returned at 4pm.
When the call was returned nobody answered.