MPs urged to support hospital

 By JAMES APA GUMUNO

ALL Western Highlands MPs have been urged to contribute to Mt Hagen provincial hospital.

Western Highlands provincial health authority interim chief executive officer Dr James Kintwa made these comments after Hagen Open MP and Petroleum and Energy Minister William Duma presented K500,000 to the hospital last Monday.

Kintwa said the hospital was serving all the people in the province, including Jiwaka.

He said Mul-Baiyer MP and Civil Aviation Minister Benjamin Poponawa assisted the hospital last year with the renovation of the intensive care unit.

Kintwa said if the MPs wanted to carry out some work on health in their respective districts, it was vital for them to use the technical advice available in the Western Highlands Provincial Health Authority (WHPHA) as it was in line with the national and provincial health policies.

He said the sustainability of the project was important because the need for recurrent costs were accommodated in their plans, otherwise they would have the facilities and assets that could not be maintained or did not contribute to significant gains in the provincial and national health outcomes.

He said the K500,000 from Duma would be used to procure much-needed medical equipment like infusion pumps and oxygen concentrators for the different wards in the hospital.

Kintwa said the oxygen concentrators would be a big relief to the hospital as they depended on oxygen cylinders a lot and, when the Highlands Highway was blocked due to bad weather, they were hit hard.

He said this would improve their capacity to treat respiratory illness like pneumonia.

He also pointed out that the hospital was planning to build its own oxygen producing plant in the future with the support from the national government and that would greatly help save cost.

Kintwa said part of the money would be used to renovate or extend office space for the increased number of specialist doctors.

He said the hospital had specialist physicians, an obstetrician, a second paediatrician and an emergency physician.

He said these specialists needed office space to work and provide clinical care. 

Kintwa said some of the money would be used to maintain and renovate sections of the accident and emergency unit.

He said the hospital had plan to renovate the whole outpatient and current accident and emergency section that was built in the late 1960s and 1970s and was unable to cope with the increased demand.