Overload at hospital
By LULU MARK
THE country’s biggest hospital is straining to provide medical services to the growing population of Port Moresby – with an estimated growth rate of 3 per cent annually, a doctor says.
Port Moresby General Hospital chief executive officer Dr Paki Molumi said overcrowding, especially in the emergency department, was a big concern.
“(The) population increases at 3 per cent a year (yet) services remain the same,” Molumi said.
“There is a discrepancy between demand and supply (which is) reflected by the overcrowding.”
He said sometimes patients died while waiting to be attended to because of the long queue.
“The hospital serves over a million people in Port Moresby, Central and Gulf,” he said.
“Limited staff are struggling to meet the demand which reduces the quality of care given to a sick person.
“As a specialist hospital, it should be concentrating on delivering specialised care so that our people do not need to go overseas for that.
“Instead, we are taking on primary and secondary care as we do not have a separate hospital for the growing population in the city.”
The city has an estimated population of 385,000.
Dr Molumi was responding to a complaint on social media about a woman being admitted at the emergency ward on Saturday but was not attended until Monday night.
“(There is) no hospital for Central and (the) Gulf Hospital cannot offer adequate services,” he said.
“Hence, all come to the Port Moresby General Hospital.
“The overcrowding at the emergency department and outpatients is a reflection of a defective health service we are offering to our people.”
He sees as the best solution to the overcrowding a separate hospital for the National Capital District Health Authority and Central to look after primary and secondary healthcare, leaving Port Moresby General Hospital to concentrate on referrals.
Right now, he said the hospital was dealing with “everything” which was putting a strain on existing resources.
5 comments
Health minister and its executives should take this problem as matter of priority and attempt it quickly because people are dying. Build another hospital because population are increasing constantly.
Were is the tax payers money gone to, build a new hospital to cater for the sick.
Come on Health Minister, do something instead of seating back and watching till some one dies from ER and that’s when you start preaching about population is increasing and so forth.
Because of this people, you are in the parliament, so come up with a plan of what you can do best to help the people of this nation.
Working long hours – more than what they signed up for.
Put money into hospital and employ more people to address the overcrowding in the short term.
Emergency staff at 3 mile work twice the hour for the same pay compared to other private clinics. Its a safety issue for the stuff and patients.
If these hospital workers are working 18 hours a day – something will give…and its not going to be pretty.
3 percet population increase per year is serious.
Long overdue concern , if government can build state of art sports facility and APEC state of art facilities at blink of an eye in the city why not another hospital, otherwise take back hospital (now PIH) build by taxpayers money under Late SIR BILL SKATE s prime minister term, (*take back png*)
Our Government does not have any plan to take care of our health need. Our only way to survive is to take care of our health. If we eat anything that is offered for sale in the shops and on the street, the change of getting sick is high.
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