The cold weather around the Rabaul catchment area in East New Britain (ENB) has seen a lot of people diagnosed at the Rabaul Town Clinic with malaria.
According to Health Extension officer Kala Mak, the hospital has recorded 120 cases of malaria so far since New Year.
However, the good thing is that at this time the hospital is able to sustain its operation with enough staff providing treatment and enough medical drug supply in stock.
“The availability of staff is fine, we have enough staff at the hospital”.
“Our supply of drugs from the Area Medical store in Kokopo is monthly so we do not have issues on that. Only on situation where is a need, we do submit supplement and urgent order, so to help our operation at the hospital”.
But the unfortunate thing is that the Rabaul Town Clinic is operating with no ambulance at the moment which is a burden to the staffs working at the clinic.
Officer Mak highlighted that the clinic has been using the St. John Ambulance and other PMV to transport referral patients to the Nonga General Hospital.
Sometimes the District Government assist with transport and recently they had to do referral of three cases of severe asthma and pneumonia over to the main hospital.
Beside that, there are minor cases of self-inflicted that are also reported to the clinic and which the staff were able to sustain all those cases right away. Mrs. Mak stated, the clinic is needing a proper set up or new infrastructure development that will include minor theatre for emergency purposes.