Full hospital services return after funding difficulties

By GLORIA BAUAI
BRAUN Rural Hospital in Morobe has re-opened full services following a scale-down due to funding issues, its hospital administrator says.
Administrator Simon Sonny said Braun received K132,000 in emergency funding from the Finchhaffen development authority to enable it to open up fully.
The money, according to Sonny, will cater for Braun’s support staff salaries and power bills for the remainder of the year.
Sonny said Braun had scaled down and was on the brink of closing all services last month.
Their situation improved last week with services resuming to cater for a population of about 120,000 from Finchhaffen and nearby districts such as Sialum and Siassi of Tewae-Siassi and Labuta of Nawaeb.
Sonny said the hospital did not receive its K8,500 monthly operational grants from the Government through the Lutheran health services (LHS) under the Christian health services this year.
He said the hospital was using left-over funds from last year and support funding from LHS trust account since January.