Province needs own hospital, advisor says

 EAST New Britain badly needs a provincial hospital, provincial health advisor Nicholas Larme says.

He said that recently in Kokopo when commending Islands Petroleum Limited for its contribution to the health sector in the province, especially through the Catholic mission’s Saint Mary’s Vunapope Hospital.

He said the provincial health division carried out two national health services standard workshops recently which included audits.

“We know exactly what the level of operation will be for each facility,” he said.

Larme said for PNG, there were seven levels of operations in the health system – aid post, community health post, health centre, district hospital, provincial hospital, regional referral facility and level seven hospital such as the Port Moresby General Hospital.

He said ENB was unfortunate not to have a provincial hospital which was level five. But as part of the plan of achieving national health service standards, there were plans to upgrade one of the existing facilities in ENB to become the provincial hospital.