Hospital to have new tuberculosis facility

SIR Joseph Nombri Kundiawa General Hospital will become the first hospital in the Highlands to have a separate treatment facility for patients diagnosed with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB).
Director of MDRTB in Chimbu Dr John Tonar said new ward would be completed before the end of the year.
He said the hospital sourced financial help from the Simbu provincial government to construct the ward after the hospital confirmed that at least nine people had MDR-TB early this year. Five of them are on treatment, two have died and two are awaiting sensitivity testing.
Tonar said the medical ward was quarantined and locked down with all patients sent home after the hospital diagnosed the nine patients.
“Currently in the medical ward, there is one  MDR-TB patient with pneumothorax and so needed underwater seal drainage which was inserted by surgeons,” he said.
He said there were some isolated cases reported in some remote parts of Chimbu in 2014 and were immediately attended to.
A team from the province travelled to Daru Island in the Western province where MDR-TB remains prevalent.