Hospitals in crisis

ANOTHER major hospital is in strife – this time it is Mt Hagen General Hospital in the Western Highlands which has turned away the sick and closed its outpatient wing yesterday following the attempted rape of a nurse at the weekend.
Neighbouring Madang’s Modilon General Hospital is still embroiled in a dispute between management and staff over the appointment of hospital CEO Christine Gawi which is now before the court (story, page 3).
And, Port Moresby General Hospital has a morgue full of bodies which it could not empty because relatives were refusing to claim their loved ones while St John Ambulance and City Hall wanted payment up front for transportation of bodies and mass burial at the 9-Mile cemetery.
The latest incident in Mt Hagen comes days after the PNG Nurses Association elected its new national and branch executives who vowed to fight for better pay and working conditions.
The hospital’s CEO Dr James Kintwa said staff had closed the outpatient department in protest over an attack on the nurse.
Metropolitan commander Chief Insp John Kale said a complaint had been lodged and police were investigating.
According to hospital staff, a man broke into the nursing quarters at the hospital grounds and attempted to rape a nurse on Sunday night.
Kintwa added that this was not the first time this had happened.
He said, in the recent past, staff had been attacked on the hospital premises; some had their houses broken into and properties stolen and one person even discharged a firearm on hospital grounds.
Coupled with this, accident and emergency staff were constant targets of attacks and verbal abuses in the hospital or when they attended to emergencies and accidents in the city and province. The frustrated hospital staff said they were not returning to work until better security measures were in place and their safety was guaranteed.
They demanded tighter security, better perimeter fencing of the hospital and residential areas and maintenance of their houses to be carried out by the provincial government and the Hagen rural and urban LLGs.
Kintwa said the staff and management planned to present their list of grievances to the provincial government and the two LLGs today.
Whether the outpatient department opens would depend on a “favourable” answer to their demands from the authorities by Friday.
He said they also wanted to know how far police had gone in their investigations into the discharged of a firearm on hospital grounds recently.
In the meantime, other units of the hospital, including inpatient and accident and emergency, were operating.
Although the outpatient section was closed, the sick were being advised to seek treatment at health centres or private clinics.
Kintwa sympathised with the hospital workers, adding that he could not force them to return to work.
However, he stressed that Mt Hagen General Hospital was a central Highlands medical facility which was already under-resourced and the current stalemate with staff was compounding an already fragile situation.
Neither the national nor provincial government officials were available for comments.