Rabaul Provincial Hospital in East New Britain is scaling down its operations as Monday, July 4, due to lack of essential commodities at the hospital including water supply power.
In a circular released yesterday on July 1, the Chief Executive Officer Dr. Ako Yap, said the ENB Provincial Health Authority, regretted to announce the scale down of non-essential services at the hospital starting Monday until further notice.
He said the continuous power interruptions and its unreliability is the main reason for this unfortunate decision by the management. Dr Yap said Water PNG had also started to apply water rationing to the hospital because of the interrupted power supply.
He added that the hospital’s aging standby generator is no longer able to sustain reliable electrical power for long periods.
The scale down will particularly affect the outpatient department with closure of the outpatients and only emergency cases will be attended to.
Only emergency surgery will be done, all clinics except for the antenatal clinic will be closed, while the consultation clinics will close indefinitely on July 11, if there is no improvement to the power supply.
However, all rural health clinics, health centres and aid posts will remain open but each Officer In Charge will adjust operations according to the situation on the ground.
On this note, Dr. Yap made an appeal to the public to look after their health and stay safe, during this time.