Save Popondetta General Hospital

ON Aug 16, the Popondetta General Hospital announced that its services have been scaled down and it will only attend to emergencies and referrals.
Reason being there is no permanent chief executive officer (CEO) to make important decisions regarding the operations of the Northern health authority .
Another reason is that some of the authority’s board members have conflict of interest, thus, are not able to make good decisions regarding appointment of a qualified CEO.
The National published my letter July 19 under the heading “Popondetta hospital needs manpower” in which I wrote about no on-call doctors being available on the night of June 30, resulting in the deaths of five patients at the outpatient ward despite the best efforts of the nursing officers.
I mentioned how prescription drugs were being sold by unqualified street vendors, thus, causing more health risks to the people.
The situation is so bad and now trouble is looming when a pregnant woman died after being operated on and the relatives are preparing to sue the hospital and the State for professional negligence.
The obstetrics and gynaecology section does not have a senior medical officer because the highly-qualified Dr Gunzee Gawin was removed for sinister reasons.
Health authorities in other provinces are functioning normal while Northern’s has been struggling because of corruption.
The Government should step in and dissolve the current board and appoint people who are honest.
Appoint those with integrity and bring back Dr Gawin.

Charles Jasar