New hospital announced

PEOPLE in West New Britain will have a new provincial hospital with modern facilities, Prime Minister James Marape says.
Marape, who was in West New Britain over the weekend, said the hospital would cost K300 million and work was expected to start next month.
He said the project was currently at contract issuance stage with funding source already identified.
According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s media team, the West New Britain provincial hospital was the first hospital project under the hospital upgrading programme that Marape approved when he became prime minister in 2019.
Marape said other provincial hospitals were being upgraded in what would be a massive transformation of the country’s health sector.
He said between now and 2025, these modern hospitals were expected to be constructed so that by the time the country celebrated its golden jubilee, the 21 provinces and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville would all have fully-equipped modern hospitals up and running to serve the people.
“As a government, we envisage that by 2025, we will have 22 modern hospitals in our 21 provinces and special region of Bougainville,” Marape said.
“We are taking stock of what has already taken place in Goroka, Lae and Port Moresby for our two national referral hospitals, but for our level 6 hospitals, we are trying to ensure that we have a programme for our people throughout the country, so that when our people are sick, there is something close to home where their issues can be addressed.”
Because of the population of West New Britain, the new provincial hospital will be at a level 5 with capacity to open into level 6.
A small ground-breaking ceremony was held on the existing hospital grounds to mark the announcement.
The province’s health authority chairman Prof Mathias Sapuri said he was confident work would begin on the new hospital next month.