Deaths at Lae Hospital after nearly 20-Hour blackout

Parliament heard today that seven people died at Lae's Angau Memorial Provincial Hospital as a result of almost 20-hours of blackout and a non-functioning generator.

Kabwum MP Patrick Basa in a series of questions to Health Minister Elias Kapavore queried whether the department was aware of this, and to establish the actual cause of these deaths.

The deaths, which occurred on October 19, came after the hospital experienced a prolonged power outage the previous day.

Basa called on Minister Kapavore to identify the root causes of the problems faced at the provincial health authority in the delivery of medical services to the people and whether they were effectively operating or was it a lack of medicines and supplies or other operational causes.

The Health Minister in response clarified there were actually 5 deaths according to the Angau hospital Chief Executive.

His response was met with a point of order from East Sepik Provincial MP Allan Bird, who told the Minister to stop complaining, as all the PHAs were faced with similar issues and they wanted answers.

When Minister Kapavore resumed, he shifted blame to the PHAs who he says get funding and should be able to manage their resources, like generators.

This was again met with a point of order by Bird, who highlighted that generators cannot operate for 24 hours, rather only for 8 hours.

The Health Minister then clarified that one of the five deaths occurred, while awaiting attention at the emergency department and it blacked out, while four were "expected deaths."

This was met with another point of order by Wabag MP and former health Minister Dr Lino Tom who asked his successor to withdraw his statement of "expected deaths" - saying the prognosis of death cannot be made by anyone but God.

Kapavore conveyed his condolences to the families of those deceased.