Health Dept backs NGI hospital plan

THE Department of Health has assured East New Britain it will support the province in its plans to establish a referral hospital for the New Guinea Islands region.
With sensitive land-related issues in the province, the provincial executive council recently decided to withdraw an earlier decision to relocate Nonga Hospital to Putput and endorse Wairiki plantation as the new hospital site.
Speaking at the opening of the Lassul health centre last Friday, Governor Leo Dion announced that landowners of Wairiki had agreed to give up 40ha of their land for the hospital to be built there.
As part of the medium-term restoration programme, the provincial government had made a policy decision to relocate specialist services to a safer location initially at Kuraiba plantation, but that fell through despite an allocation of K1.5 million for land acquisition.
With clan issues facing the Kuraiba option, provincial executives reviewed and endorsed Putput as the new site.
But progress was stalled by Putput landowner queries and the sale agreement was impossible as a result of landowner issues.
“This decision was not made lightly and we considered our experiences with Kuraiba and Putput landowners groups that disputed ownership of the land.
“If we continue to dispute, we will miss out on key developments,” Dion said.
Health secretary Paso Kase assured Dion that the establishment of the referral hospital there would go ahead once the provincial government secured a site.
“The department is looking forward to supporting the Nonga referral hospital in ENB to support NGI.”
Kase said with the burning down of the Rabaul Area Medical Store last year,
the department would be building a new transit store in Rabaul.