ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital

Equipment and staffing are the main challenges that prevent Morobe’s health workers from effectively performing their duties.

The ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital, built in 1963, currently serves over 675,000 residents of Morobe, and acts as a referral hospital for 1.9 million people of the Momase region.

Unfortunately, capacity and capability limitations hamper the effective delivery of health services to the population.

The 47 participants are made up of nurses, doctors and community health workers from the ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital.

The health staff participated in a two-week Monash Online Paediatric Essential Care course, which was delivered by the Monash University and the Clinical Support Program Phase II team of Johnstaff International Development (JiD).

Commencing on the 15^th of November, the course aimed to assist in the training and up-skilling of the paediatric health workforce.

Over a week has passed since the PNG Nurses Association commenced their sit-in protest over outstanding industrial awards.

In Lae, nurses continued their gathering at the ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital while doctors and community health workers (CHWs) took on added responsibilities in the wards.

Voice of Morobe chairman, Sam Oyaya, said PNG has been fighting a TB epidemic for many years hence it should not be pushed back to cater for COVID-19.

Oyaya has been a patient at ANGAU’s TB ward for eight months now.

He has witnessed the death of many patients in the ward, hence he is concerned that the senior executive management of the Morobe Provincial Health Authority are not weighing out options before deciding to relocate them.

Morobe Provincial Health Authority CEO, Dr Kipas Binga, said the national procurement system hinders the timely delivery of medical drugs and consumables.

Ordinary Papua New Guineans are forced to buy their own medicine when seeking treatment at the ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital.

Those suffering from intense pain get a prescription from ANGAU to buy their morphine from pharmacies or other private hospitals; a costly and burdensome exercise for ordinary citizens.

Health workers of the ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital have excitedly moved into the new state-of-the-art labour ward.

The new birthing ward is spacious, comfortable and adequately fitted with facilities and equipment that midwives and mothers would need. This includes a waiting room for guardians and backyard with ample space for mothers to walk around.

The labour ward’s nurse manager, Sister Florence Nick, said they commenced operations on Wednesday, June 2^nd, expressing that the new facility was a relief compared to the previous overcrowded ward.

The senior specialist physician in internal medicine passed away after a long battle with illness.

The atmosphere at the ANGAU Hospital was significantly different on Thursday morning as the medical fraternity gathered to farewell one of their own.

The Late Dr Kelly Kep passed away on the evening of March 31^st at ANGAU – the hospital he called home for two years.

It was obvious he was held in good stead – and high regard – by his colleagues and especially his tribes from Warakamb Valley and Lower Wage in Kandep, Enga Province.

With doctors standing down from their jobs at the ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital, the COVID-19 hospital lacking emergency drugs and other critical medical supplies, the Nurses Association Morobe president, Siling Awasa, is urging citizens to protect themselves against the virus.

She outlined that sunlight (heat) contributes to the healing of multiple health conditions, including severe acute respiratory syndrome.

With traffic diverted to the smaller health centres, nurses and HEOs are now calling for more manpower, proper facilities and adequate medical supplies.

The medical officers had no choice but to come out to the media to make public their longstanding issues of manpower shortage, ill-equipped health facilities and inadequate medical drugs and consumables.

These frontliners are also not immune to COVID-19 as they recently lost a colleague at Lae’s COVID-19 hospital, while a good percentage has been infected.

This was why staff at the ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital have been calling for their own isolation facility since 2020; families have shunned medical workers who have been exposed to the virus. 

Since PNG’s first COVID-19 case early last year, staff at the ANGAU Memorial Provincial Hospital have highlighted to their management the need for an isolation facility.