Second building in Angau project commissioned

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THE commissioning of the back-of-house unit at Angau General Hospital in Lae yesterday marks the second building under the current Angau redevelopment project to be completed.
The first building commissioned in April was the tuberculosis (TB) ward with other buildings to be completed in a few months’ time, according to Johnstaff International Development (JID) coordinator Melinda Kanamon.
The back-of-house unit accommodates the laundry, kitchen and main storage sections and is one of the important building in the hospital.
JID commissioning specialist Carolyn Bartholomew said the commissioning of the building included equipping it and training staff on how to use those equipment.
“The policies and procedures were taken into account along the way, how the staff work to try to make improvements to up-skill the staff along the way,” she said.
Bartholomew said training for staff was part of the back-of-house building development to equip staff at the best possible level perform their duties.
She said JID initially trained staff to work at the laundry and kitchen over a six-week period.
“This week, we started providing meals to nearly all patients in the hospital,” Bartholomew said.
Kanamon said change management was a huge task that was on-going and required the hospital staff and the patients to take ownership and start changing some ways they do things.
She said in terms of the Angau redevelopment project, JID was working to deliver 14 new buildings under the current contract.
“The project delivery office is currently working on other project such as mortuary, waste management facility and other,” Kanamon said.
She said the project was expected to be completed by mid-next year, but it was affected by the Covid-19 so the completion of the whole project would be delayed.