Situated at the small and peaceful coastal township of Vanimo, the health staff at the West Sepik Provincial Hospital attended to about 50 to 100 cases over the recent festive season.
A nursing officer from the Accident and Emergency Department, who wished not to be named, told PNG HAUSBUNG that over the Christmas and New Year period the staff attended to a lot of alcohol related cases from brawls that resulted in a number of knife wounds and trauma cases.
The nursing officer added that all knife wound cases were minor and all were treated and sent home except for one death on New Year’s Day, when one trauma patient passed away.
“We managed to treat a majority of them, observed them to make sure they were stable before we discharged them from the hospital.”
Apart from those major cases attended to, the hospital staff also attended to the normal cases at the outpatient during the festive period.
“We had the normal cases that hospitals get on a daily basis- cases like diarrhea, malaria, food poisoning, flu and especially asthma in this dry weather.”
Meanwhile, the nursing officer also urged the people to look after themselves during this time and to always complete their dosages of medication after they get treated at the provincial hospital.
“If you sleep under a mosquito net you avoid malaria, do little things like this to help protect you and your family.”