Hospital staff ‘under pressure’

By ELIZABETH VUVU
NURSES and doctors at the Nonga General Hospital in East New Britain are working under a lot of pressure because the hospital is providing both referral and outpatient services, chief executive officer Dr Ako Yap says.
Yap was responding to complaints raised by residents on the local radio station regarding the poor services provided by doctors and nurses at the outpatient department especially during the festive season.
“People must understand that Nonga functions as a referral hospital for the New Guinea Islands region,” he said.
“We should not be running outpatient services which is the responsibility of the health centres in the districts.”
Yap said health centres should be referring patients to Nonga only if cases got complicated.
“After the free health care policy introduction, people from all over the province are flooding to Nonga,” he said.
“The hospital board directed me not to send patients away but to assist them – together with the referred cases we give priority to.”
Yap said the hospital had put in place measures including two shifts for hospital staff from 8am to 3pm and 3pm to 10pm to ease the load.
He said during the recent shutdown period for public servants, hospital staff on call worked throughout the entire 10 days.
“We cannot put the blame on anyone. Our hands are tied but we realise we cannot push people away at the outpatient area but to serve them,” he said.
Yap urged people to make use of the health centres – except for people from the Balanataman LLG in Rabaul district where the hospital is.
Yap said the hospital was facing a drug shortage but this was a nationwide issue.