Over 40 doctors at the ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital have stood down and will not be attending to patients.
Their demands, which were presented on Thursday March 25th, were not met.
They have undertaken the action to demonstrate their dissatisfaction at the management of the Morobe Provincial Health Authority.
The doctors say the health authority has persistently failed to respond or act on their numerous petitions.
The management is yet to address the acute medical officer shortage issue as well as honour annual gratuity payments for contract officers for 2020.
Moreover, six senior medical officers are still employed as ‘casuals’ despite clocking over two years with the hospital while four of the 20 registrars are still in substantive positions.
National Doctors Association – Morobe president, Dr Barry Mutan, said they want to see their manpower get beefed up immediately instead of being subjected to explanations.
He made this comment in relation to a response from the Department of Personnel Management Secretary, Taies Sansan, who said the process of recruitment was delayed due to COVID-19.
“We’ve had the issue of staff shortage for the past five years and we’ve been talking about it for the last three years. COVID just came; it shouldn’t be a reason to not get the manpower that we need,” Dr Mutan stated.
“We should beef up our manpower to continue to provide care to our patients.
“The secretary’s response does not address our issues. We want to see things happening.”
Dr Mutan said they will not attend to their jobs until they get a favourable response from the CEO of the Morobe Provincial Health Authority, Dr Kipas Binga.
(ANGAU’s emergency department)