Public hospitals lack expert medical staff

 THE recent announcement by some hospitals to purchase specialised equipment to improve the health status of our people is very welcoming. 

There seems to be a strategic shift in hospital management and development strategy among the health administrators of hospitals in PNG by acquiring state of art equipment. 

Although this shift is small, I believe, it is the right direction and the hospital chief executive officers and their boards need to strengthen this direction through consultation with clinicians on the front lines.

Unfortunately, the medical specialist knowledge and experiences in using these state of the art equipment are lacking in this country. 

Local training for undergraduate and the Masters of Medicine in various disciplines delivered by the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of PNG at the Port Moresby General Hospital is essentially generalist and lacks depth. 

It does not accord the practitioner specialist skills in optimising the value out of the multimillion kina state of art equipment purchased by the hospitals. 

Hospital boards and managements often make unilateral decisions without taking stock of expertise on the ground and as a corollary some hospitals in the country have some state of art equipment collecting dust whilst others have other specialist functions that are not used because their doctors have not been trained and do not have expertise to operate and maximise the benefits of these equipment to improve patient health outcomes. 

Lack of international training seemed too far-fetched for administrators of hospitals and the National Health Training Committee of the Health Department, which does not have any knowledge of the training requirements for local health care staff to up-skill their status comparable with international standards in clinical medicine. 

Training for various fields in medicine and nursing are more pressing today than a decade ago given the changing disease patterns, burden and the standard of international practice. 

Most health care workers throughout PNG will attest to this assessment.

Specialist training in blood and solid cancers treatment is one such area that has been a need area for decades that receives frequent media coverage, specialists in operating and making use of all modalities in CT and MRI scanners are now needed because some hospitals are starting to install these machines without expertise on the ground. 

Specialist training in diabetes, stroke and heart are required by PNG now that the epidemic of diabetes, stroke and heart disease have now become the top ten causes of death and disabilities in this country. 

The importance of keeping statistics is to act decisively and proactively in addressing changes the stats present to us and for two decades the Health Department has turned a blind eye on this.

I believe that equipment procurement in association with a structured international specialist training of health staff for now, whilst  capacities at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Taurama Campus and the Port Moresby General Hospital hopefully, will improve the standard of health care in this country. 

The National Health Department Training Committee and individual hospital administrations and their Boards throughout the country need to have strategies and harness the financial and administrative powers bestowed on them in having a bigger picture and vision for moving the practice of medicine in PNG from generalist practice to specialist practice that will be in consistent with the rising demand of the health needs of the people.

Dr Leslie Bahn Kawa 

Port Moresby