Hospital faces money, transport woes

By YVONNE HAIP
MENDI General Hospital’s outreach service in the Southern Highlands has been put on hold because of transport pro­blems.
Hospital chief executive officer Joseph Turian said the hospital did not have a vehicle to carry out the outreach programmes and over the past couple of months, they had not visited rural hospitals and health centres.
He said the hospital had three vehicles but they were used for other purposes and could not be used for the outreach programmes.
During the provincial executive council meeting in Mendi in February, Governor Anderson Agiru had presented a vehicle each to the Tari and Mendi hospitals.
The Mendi hospital vehicle had been intended for the rural outreach services but is yet to be delivered to the hospital.
Turian said one of Agiru’s staff members (Nicholas Sambu) had picked up the vehicle  from Ela Motors in Mt Hagen and had been advised to officially hand it over to the hospital board and management.
But Turian said the staff member had kept the vehicle for personal use for a month before crashing it.
He said repairs would cost about K53,000.
He said the hospital was reluctant to meet that cost and to accept a damaged vehicle.
He said K250,000 which had been allocated for the hospital by the provincial government in last year’s budget, had been presented three weeks ago, but, he said, the money had yet to reach the hospital.
Turian said he would like to know when the money would be presented to the hospital.
He said the hospital needed this money to carry out its operation.
He said he had called Agiru’s staff member who had received the money on June 9.
But he has  yet to give the hospital its funds.
 “I don’t know what his intentions are but the hospital is a vital institution.”
He called on Agiru and relevant authorities to look into the matter.
Attempts to get comments from Agiru and the governor’s office last Friday were unsuccessful.