Sister in Charge for the Gordons Clinic Sr Delma Hombunaka has called upon the National Department of Health (NDOH) to reconsider their decision and allow the Nurse Stations to remain open. She made this call following a circular released by the NDOH giving the Nurse Stations 14 days to close down. Sr Delma said the drug shortage issue in hospitals and clinics is an ongoing issue with limited staff over the past few years and these burdens are somewhat eased when there are Nurse Stations to share the load. “We have run out of antibiotics drugs and other essential drugs in our NCD clinics and we don’t have enough manpower to cater for the population in the city so why are we closing the Nurse stations when they are helping so many patients we cannot help with our allocated resources.” Sr Delma said the timing also is not right for NDOH to make such drastic decisions when it is the peak period where accidents and illnesses are at the highest. She said most clinics are expected to scale down during the festive period as most of the staffs usually go on leave with a handful of them staying behind to attend to emergency cases only. “This is the festive period when we will have a lot of sick people filling up our clinics and if the Nurse Stations do close down, how are we supposed to serve the huge population in the city.” Sr Delma said the Health Department should sort out the drug shortage issue and start recruiting more health workers if they do decide to go ahead with their decision to close down the Nurse Stations.