Drama depicts ignorance

By LORRAINE JIMAL
A GROUP of students presented a role play to their doctors and nurses in celebrating World Anesthesia Day at the Port Moresby General Hospital last Friday.
Six University of Papua New Guinea fifth year bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery students’ drama demonstrated doctors’ ignorance to take care of their wellbeing like the way they cared and treated their patients and most times ended up stressful in the end.
It demonstrated the importance of mental, physical, spiritual and social wellbeing of an anaesthesiologists.
World Anaesthesia Day is celebrated on Oct 16, to mark the first successful demonstration of diethyl ether anesthesia in 1846.
The discovery made it possible for patients to obtain the benefits of surgical treatment without pain.
Anesthesia is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical purposes.
During an operation, an anesthetist puts a patient into temporary unconsciousness.
This year’s celebrations focused on acknowledging the leading role anesthetists played in their day-to-day operations and drew attention back to the wellbeing of the anesthesiologists.
Deputy Chief psychiatrist Dr Monica Hagali said being a doctor, one would work in a stressful environment such as workload, time constraints, organisational and work place issues, responsibility and fear of harm to patients, having the stress of being infected and the stress of having the responsibility to keep the patients alive.
Dr Hagali said to control the stressful mind, the doctors should relax and think about the cause and deal with it.
“Take a deep breathing exercises, visit the place that you loved the most, share your stress with you partners, manage your time, eat healthy food and look after yourself,” she said.
PMGH chief executive officer Paki Molumi said he wanted the number of surgeons and anesthesiologists to increase in the future.
However, that would take five-10 years.
He said the hospital wanted to build more facilities and infrastructure but needed the manpower. He said they would increase the manpower by recruiting specialists from overseas in the country next year, depending on the support.
“Port Moresby is a level seven hospital and we got to do the highest staff,” Molumi said.
“We supposed to stop people from seeking treatment out of the country.
“We need to work together,” he said.