WHP health body gets mobile phones to aid rural areas

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Friday 30th December 2011

WESTERN Highlands health authorities received K10,000 worth of closed-user-group Digicel mobile phones for a monthly K6,000 service fee.
Rural health officers in the province received the phones to stay in contact with the Mt Hagen Provincial Hospital and other health centres in the province.
The timely help allows health officers from the seven districts in the province to communicate on treatment of patients.
Provincial health services chief executive officer James Kintwa said the CUG Digicel phones brought relief to
health officers and made life safer for many patients.
He said communications had been neglected in the delivery of basic health services and many patients lost their lives as a result.
He said the communication network had been cut off to many parts of the province, making it difficult to diagnose and treat sick people.
He said that rural and urban health had joined in order to eradicate the sickness in the province and the mobile phone communication was a relief for the people.
“The Mt. Hagen Provincial Hospital is very crowded because of the lack of medical advice health centres get from the doctors because we have only a few doctors serving at the general hospitals,” he said.
“The use of these phones will make it easier for health officers to call the doctors and get advice rather than transporting patients to general hospitals.
“The people have their right to receive health services.”
Dei district health officer Saiglon Wimp said this was “a blessing” for them.
Wimp said: “We have been serving patients in the darkness because we don’t have any tool to communicate each other.”