Rita Flynn not taking in patients, says official

RITA Flynn will not be taking in patients, National Capital District health authority (NCDPHA) acting chief executive officer Ken Wai says.
“The decision was made in a meeting between CEOs of NCDPHA, Port Moresby General Hospital (PMGH) and St John Ambulance (SJA) on Sunday.
“Rita Flynn will continue with testing and surveillance,” he added.
“We have been running three different Government facilities, managing the Covid-19 in the city, PMGH, Rita Flynn with 45 beds and most recently, the Taurama Aquatic Indoor Complex (TAIC) with about 300 beds,” Wai said.
Rita Flynn was opened to Covid-19 testing and inpatients from March 5 to today.
“We have so far admitted and treated 169 Covid-19 cases.
“Nearly all were discharged or referred. We lost seven severe patients because PMGH ICU was full and we could not refer them.
“We tried our best but lost them due to severe complications. We used about 120 oxygen cylinders at that time within two to three days,” he said.
“Now the admission numbers have gone down, so we decided to transfer 92 staff, including seven specialist doctors, two registrars, seven hospital executive officers, 20 nurses, 35 community health workers and other allied and support staff to the TAIC Field Hospital as of Tuesday,” he added.
Wai said the medical equipment and other logistics would also be transferred.
“TAIC will be jointly run by NCDPHA, PMGH and SJA.
“It is better to run one big hospital now in TAIC to manage the moderate and mild cases and refer very severe cases to PMGH,” he added.