By Serah Aupong – EM TV News, Port Moresby
Wewak General Hospital is planning major changes, both in its clinical facilities and its human resource management.
Over the years, the 54-year-old medical institution in the East Sepik province has been left to deteriorate.
New CEO, Mark Mauludu, has already set in motion plans to ensure a stop to this downward trend and reestablish it as a premier hospital.
Set in an idyllic location in Wewak, the hospital caters to around 400,000-500,000 people in the East Sepik province.
In March 1962, Boram Provincial Hospital was officially opened to serve both the East and West Sepik provinces.
Current maintenance work on surgical wards 2 A and B is the first maintenance or renovation work of any kind done to the hospital in over 50 years.
According to Mauludu the whole hospital building contains asbestos, the toxic building material that needs to be properly disposed. Since work started on the wards, it has taken about a month for the contractors to tear down this section of the hospital.
“Last year they gave us about K3 million which we are using to tear down these two wards,” Mauludu said of funding they’received from the National Department of Health.
This work is expected to be completed by June this year and Mauludu says this is the start of big plans for the hospital.
“We are planning to move swiftly through all the wards to replace them once we have the money,” he added.
The whole overhaul of the hospital would cost around K20 million.
While the hospital facility is experiencing a facelift, plans are already underway for the welfare and growth of the hospital staff.
“We have gone through a structure; we have tried to upgrade a number of positions. In the past we didn’t have enough doctors positions, we have now done that,” Mauludu said.
All these plans are contained in a five-year corporate plan that Mauludu will present to an annual general meeting next week.
Invitations have been sent to East Sepik’s six open members, two of whom are state ministers. Invitations have also gone out to the Governor, Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare, along with the Minister and Secretary for Health.
“If they can attend our meeting next week, that’s the time we will be talking about what we want to do with the remainder of this year. Basically we will be asking them to help us with the finance to overhaul the hospital in terms of maintenance program. They have the money; we need to sell the hospital to them,” Mauludu said.
