Hospital needed

I WISH to commend the Government and the Port Moresby General Hospital (PMGH) for establishing the first Public Heart Diagnostic unit at PMGH.
This will be a boon to some people who have blockages to their arteries to the heart; the interventional cardiologist will be able to visualise the blockage, sometime put in a stent to open up the narrowed artery, or if the blockage is more serious, refer the patient overseas for bypass surgery to replace the blocked blood vessel.
If the cardiac catheterisation unit works “full steam” something of the order of 100-200 people (and it will be mostly men – because such is the epidemiology of this condition) will be able to have this service in a year.
I would also make a plea on behalf of families and particularly women and mothers for the government to spend some money on services for the 20,000 or so women who give birth every year in Port Moresby – including women from surrounding parts of the Central who travel to the NCD to access health services.
In addition, there are about 20,000 women who come to the gynaecology, family planning, antenatal and post natal clinics at the PMGH who are crying out for services.
Port Moresby General Hospital is able to cope with about half of the above numbers.
However, we are not able to turn women away when they come with in labour, or are bleeding, or having various emergency situations like ectopics and miscarriages; so this means that we have women delivering on the floor and women standing in passage ways in labour and holding onto the walls as there is no bed space for them.
There are 24 beds in the labour ward and about 45-50 women come every day seeking birthing assistance.
Therefore, I beg the government – as the next infrastructure project in the NCD – that two district hospitals (one in each of Moresby South and Moresby North East) be built, and the Gerehu Hospital be expanded to cater for women who need birthing services in that part of the city.
Highly specialised services are the “icing on the cake”; but it is not sensible to put beautiful icing on a rotten or poor quality cake.

Professor Glen Mola
Head of Reproductive Health,
Obstetrics and Gynaecology,
SMHS-UPNG