Madang Provincial Hospital lacks work tools and cleaning detergents
It's been revealed that the Madang Provincial Hospital is lacking essential equipment to attend to patients as well as basic cleaning detergents to keep the hospital facilities clean and hygienic.
It was further revealed that most wards are without toilet facilities, making it hygienically unsafe for both the patients and staff.
These stark revelations were made at last week's meeting that the staff had with board members, Young Wadau [deputy board chairman for Madang PHA], and Dr Clement Manineng, plus a member of the Senior Executive Management team, Dr Martin Daimen.
Member for Madang, Bryan Kramer joined the meeting halfway through.
Speaking on behalf of the doctors, Senior Pediatrician Dr Jimmy Aipit said that whilst the Madang Provincial Hospital has some of the best committed doctors and nurses, they lack the necessary tools.
"The health services in this haus sik [hospital] have been moving because nurses and doctors have been coming every day, every shift blo wok [to work] despite the very bad, inhumane situation in this haus sik [hospital]," Dr Aipit said.
He added that doctors have been discussing these issues amongst themselves for some time and have written to the Senior Executive Management team, however; the team has been working in isolation.
Dr Aipit revealed toilets at the hospital wards have badly deteriorated and in urgent need of repair, nil stock of patients' food rations, no stationeries, and no fuel for the hospital's standby generator. There are no soap and no hand sanitisers in the wards. He added that the last one month has been chaotic for the level five hospital.
"Mipla wokabaut antap lo toilet pipia blo ol sikman na ol pablik. Mipla brukim bus istap insait lo haus sik. All our public health indicators are very poor, and Madang is ranked last. We all know that. We can't look after our patients," Dr Aipit said.
Apart from the appalling state of facilities and lack of very basic necessities, Dr Aipit also revealed that a number of doctors at the Madang Provincial Hospital have been working for a year and a half without pay and are also faced with the possibility of being evicted from their houses due to non-payment of rentals.
It was also revealed during the meeting that some of the doctors were engaged as casuals and have worked for a year and a half without pay.
Meanwhile, speaking on behalf of the SEM team, Dr Martin Daimen, Acting Director of Public Health, attributed the issues raised by the staff to a 'systems failure' within the organisation.
He said, "We can fix the issues, but we need the right people with the know-how to be in there. For HR [human resource], we don't have a specialist in there, and that is why we are going to continue to face issues."
In order to effectively address these issues, Dr Daimen highlighted the need to urgently rectify the processes that are in place.