by Jack Lapauve Jr EM TV, Port Moresby
As a government planned referral centre in the Highlands region, the Mt Hagen General Hospital is now seeing gradual improvements to its infrastructure.
This comes at a cost of K8.5 million under the government’s Public Improvement Program. This upgrade, however, is still being placed under stress as Western Highlands Province has one of the highest birth rates in the country.
This wing will contain specialist surgical services and with 48 patient beds.
Chief Executive of the Western Highlands Provincial Health Authority, Dr James Kintwa says more developments are being planned to cater to the growing population.
“We are making progress to prepare this hospital as a referral regional centre in the Highlands,” he said.
The hospital has seen major upgrading of its data reporting collection, from manual to electronic. But all these developments are hampered with indicators of staff shortage, specialist services and space in general.
The national government has allocated a total of K20 million this year and K10 million in next year’s budget to improve and prepare the Hagen hospital as a referral centre. The current changes have been supported with funding from a partnership between the Australian and Japanese governments.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=zu_vogqRxys%3Ffeature%3Doembed%26wmode%3Dopaque%26showinfo%3Do%26showsearch%3D0%26showsearch%3D0%26rel%3D0
