It is for the first time in the history of Port Moresby General Hospital to have a legal officer and this lawyer is none other than Lilian Kauba from a mixed parentage of Chimbu and Enga.
Lilian’s dad is from Gumine District in Chimbu and her mother is from Laiagam District in Enga Province. She comes from a family of four with two older siblings, a brother who is a medical doctor working in Kundiawa, an older sister who is a dental surgeon working with Diamond International Clinic at Vision City and a younger brother is also a lawyer.
This is Kauba’s second year at the PMGH. She started in January 6 2021, but before that, she was with Yalopan and Associate lawyers for five years, then with the Ministry for Labour for a year as first secretary to the minister. This would be her third job in her 9th year of practicing as a lawyer.
Kauba says she is privileged to be the first to start the newly established a legal office at the hospital, an initiative of hospital CEO, Dr. Paki Molumi.
“I am privileged to start it off and work from there and hopefully I’ll build it up. My work is incorporated into the new Corporate Plan for the hospital to the extent that it provides a work plan for how the procurement processes are implemented in Port Moresby General Hospital.
PMGH has just been approved by the National Procurement Commission as a statutory agent to carry out procurement processes so my work would be mostly with contract management and making sure the scope of work is done and requirements and compliancy act is followed through accordingly so we are all kept in line and transparency is achieved.
As the legal officer for the hospital, Kauba has to adjust herself from just engaging with mitigation and commercial work in the past to now doing legal practice in health, and to identify issues and reasons for many negligence cases ending up in court.
“On a daily basis my work includes consultation with the office of the solicitor general providing them evidences with regards to cases that are against the hospital. On top of that, we are working on implementing the national health plan and I believe the corporate plan will implement that. Apart from that we have in-house criminal offences as well, it’s really an office that’s dealing with all areas of the law right now,” she says.
“So it has been very challenging for me and I cannot say that it has been an easy year for me but working in the hospital is very interesting and exciting.
“One of the things we are struggling is when the patients’ ask for medical charts we cannot release, we have to protect ourselves also because we will be open for litigation. PNG is yet to develop its jurisdiction on patient’s rights, medical negligence cases, how to protect the hospital against further court cases in relations to patient’s medical chart.”