Port Moresby hospital lacking capacity

A SOCIAL media post is going viral alluding that doctors are not attending to mothers coming in to deliver at the Port Moresby General Hospital, blaming doctors for non-attendance and claiming that doctors are conducting their own private practice instead of serving the hospital.
Port Moresby General Hospital runs a 24-hour service just like every other public hospital in the country.
Its runs normal public hours from 7.45am to 4.06pm and then the afternoon shift from 4.06pm to 7.45am.
That is for doctors.
Doctors on-call attend to very sick inpatients and are on standby for emergencies.
Mothers in labour are taken in as an emergency.
Nurses do three 8-hour shifts.
The real problem Port Moresby General Hospital facing is it is too small to accommodate the growing population of Port Moresby, and the hospital is incapacitated by the influx of patients from Central and Gulf.
It had been repeated and echoed in many forums.
Before independence, it was built to serve the city’s colonial population of 200,000.
After independence, and in the 1990s when the Japanese section of the hospital was built, it was designed to serve a population of 400,000.
Now, the population of the city has gone beyond 1.3 million, and Port Moresby General Hospital has remained the same.
Despite the increase of private medical setups in the city, they insignificantly address Port Moresby General Hospital’s problems.
Port Moresby General Hospital’s resources are wasted on primary and secondary cases.
That is where bulk of the resources are spent.
Less tertiary training and research are conducted because of this. Port Moresby General Hospital has faithfully carried this burden.
New developments are in the pipeline to address this to make Port Moresby General Hospital a level 6 national referral, research, tertiary and teaching hospital for the country.
The hospital’s management and board of have drawn the master plan, and they must be congratulated for this.
Those interested to know the work behind the scenes can contact the board and management of Port Moresby General Hospital.
Central gave the National Capital District land for the county’s capital city.
The Government should, in return, build a hospital for Central as a thank you and funding should be sourced out as soon as possible.
Gerehu stage 6 hospital for National Capital District was agreed on, however, the fact that it has not gone ahead is regretful.
Ignoring the truth or not knowing the background to what it is, and blaming doctors must be evidence based.
Right now, population growth rate is 2.7-3.0 per cent.
What does this mean?
It means, every year, 270,000 to 300,000 new born will be added to the population.
At this current rate, the doctor to population ratio will be 1: 20,000.
Five years ago, it was 1: 17,000.
The ratio will worsen.
Planners and the government hierarchy must know this glaring truth and correct it before it worsens.
It will be very difficult to plateau the ratio too.
For elective surgery, waiting time to undergo surgery is widening and very concerning.
When empathy is cross-cut through the hierarchy of decision making, realism will yield the expected result.
Right now, empathy to this need is not cross-sectional.
For doctors, dealing with patients is their business.
Doctors are leaders in patient care from top-down, and bottom-up.
Everyone else bridges the gap in the health system.
Doctors are trained to attend to patients.
Attending to on-calls is a must.
It is implanted and imprinted in them.
In the public health system, specialist doctors who have served the public health system for five years and more are allowed to do limited rights to private practice exclusively after hours when not on call.
Our citizen opting for such service can be reached out.
Specialist doctors who have not reached the regulation five years in the public health system and registrars and resident medical officers are exclusively banned from doing limited rights to private practice.
If this category of doctors are seen practicing after hours, then it is illegal.
Pre-registration committee, medical board and hospitals where these doctors are employed can be reach out to audit their performance with decision made within its respective jurisdiction.

Dr James Naipao
National President
National Doctors Association