Morobe focusing on facilities

By JIMMY KALEBE
WHILE Morobe Covid-19 preparedness committee is still conducting awareness into coronavirus in the province, it is now also focusing more on facilities for health care at the hospital level.
Clinical head of intestinal medicine and Covid-19 committee member Dr Kipas Binga announced last Friday that screening for people coming into the province had been going on for the past two weeks.
More than 1,500 patients visiting clinics in Lae City had been screened for the virus.
“In all those cases screened, five cases were suspected with samples collected and sent for testing. Out of that, one has been cleared of the virus,” he said.
Binga said there was no confirmed case in the country.
“All entry points to the province were considered and safety measures are in place to monitor people’s movement.”
He urged people coming to Morobe from Port Moresby to fill in forms so that if cases are detected, it would be easy to trace them.
Binga said a space at Angau Hospital has been set aside to isolate suspected cases. The Health Department has advised the committee that a facility for isolating people with suspected cases will be built somewhere in the Miles area along the Highlands Highway.
“The response now is that we are educating our staff on this virus, as there are a lot of uncertainty within. We are human beings and while providing that care, we have to think of our health as priority,” Binga said.