Madang PHA chairman responds to concerns
The Chairman of the Madang Provincial Health Authority, Dr Boga Figa; has spoken out for the first time since assuming office in September last year, about the ongoing problems affecting the smooth operation of the Madang Provincial Hospital and the entire Madang PHA.
He has also highlighted a number of critical areas that his board and the management have agreed to prioritise, as and when funds are available.
During a recent media conference, Dr Figa explained in detail the real situation that Madang PHA is currently confronted with.
His explanation was more in response to issues raised on both the mainstream and social media by concerned community leaders and concerned citizens in the province.
Chief amongst issues being highlighted time and again is the obvious lack of medical drugs at the Madang Provincial Hospital and even rural health facilities, the deteriorating condition of the provincial hospital and the incomplete Outpatient and the Accident and Emergency wings at the hospital.
Dr Figa explained that since the establishment of the Madang Provincial Health Authority in 2019, the PHA in Madang never made any real progress for various reasons; amongst them the lack of a provincial health plan, a clinical health services plan and an infrastructural plan.
According to Dr Figa, “Madang PHA was established in 2019 under the previous regime, and there was a board appointed and a CEO was put in place. Since that time the PHA never really took off because there was no provincial health plan. A corporate plan was written up in 2023, however; prior to that there was no proper plan, no clinical services plan, and no infrastructural plan.”
Dr Figa stated that when you don’t have these basics, it is almost ‘next to impossible’ to seek funding from the national government because they cannot see what you are trying to budget for so they will just send you your recurrent budget just to run daily activities.”
Commenting on the supply of medical drugs, Dr Figa said, there are a lot of misconceptions regarding this. He explained that the procurement of drugs remains the responsibility of the Department of Health and all drugs are stored at the National Medical Store in Badili and are then sent to the regional medical stories around the country.
For Madang, we collect ours from Lae. He added the Health Minister has now directed all provinces to have their own medical stores and Madang PHA is now upgrading its own facility next to the Lutheran School of Nursing so we can get our supplies directly from Badili.
Regarding the status of health facilities, the board chairman highlighted priority areas that the board has approved for immediate work to commence on, including the completion of the Outpatient and the Accident and Emergency wings.
Dr Figa and the acting CEO, Dr Sammy Thomas recently went to Waigani to see the Acting Secretary for Health and they finally got approval to use a K15 million government funding, committed by the then health minister, Dr Lino Tom during a visit to Madang.
That funding has been sitting in the HSIP or Health Sector Improvement Program basket for some time due to the lack of a PHA Board since 2022. He said K250, 000 of this funding was already used by NDoH to advertise for bids for the design of the redevelopment of the hospital. The board hopes those funds can be reimbursed because they belong to MaPHA and shouldn’t have been used.
“With the balance of about K14.7 million, the board sat recently and deliberated on projects that needed to be progressed as priorities. The board has approved for the first K1. 4m to complete the work at the OPD and the A & E that was abandoned because of mismanagement of a previous K5 million kina that was earmarked for its completion,” Dr Figa said.
He said Madang PHA appreciates concerns and issues raised by the general public, but added that a lot of them are legacy issues that have been carried on from the previous regimes.