PM reveals big plans for city hospital
The National, Monday October 28th, 2013
By JEFFREY ELAPA
PRIME Minister Peter O’Neill says the Port Moresby General Hospital will be established under a statutory authority next year.
This means that all human resource management issues such as the recruitment of staff and budget allocations will be separate from the public service structure.
These are dealt with by the departments of personnel management and health now.
O’Neill visited the hospital with Health Minister Michael Malabag yesterday.
He was shown the developments and renovations at the hospital that would cost the hospital K12 million – a million kina each for the 12 hospital wards to undergo renovation and maintenance work.
O’Neill said the Government had allocated the hospital K50 million of funding for hospitals while the others received only K10 million each.
He said from next year, the hospital would be managed under a hospital authority that would manage its own budget and human resources
The Government plans to try out the hospital authority idea with the Port Moresby General Hospital before extending it to other hospitals. He announced that talks are going on to increase the funding for health in the country in the 2014 budget.
Hospital board chairman Sir Theophilus Constantinou, chief executive officer Grant Muddle and board member Darren Young showed him the K1 miilion renovation at the hospital
Young said the hospital would have elector beds like those in Sydney and Gold Coast, in Australia.
He said the hospital would recruit trained nurses from neighbouring countries such as Fiji to increase capacity at the hospital.