Miscellaneous

As most of you would be aware Goroka General Hospital has it’s own website (http://www.ggh.org.pg/) – a first for a PNG Public Hospital. A website is the perfect medium for sharing news, articles and other items of interest with the outside world.

We are currently seeking news items and photos from Hospital staff with the view to publishing these to our website. The form and content of your stories can be wide and varied – here are some ideas that will hopefully generate some interest and response from Hospital Staff:

• Conferences and workshops you have attended or facilitated.
• Rural visits including photos.
• Current projects (eg: Oxygen Plant, Housing relocation etc…)
• An introduction of your Department/Section/Team.
• A success story (eg: funding, study scholarship, accomplishment etc…)
• Personal Staff profile.

We look forward to receiving your stories and news items and if published your name will be noted as the author of the article. Also, if you are needing access to a digital camera to add some colour to your story we are more than happy to assist.

Yours sincerely,
Manager IM&T
GGH

Email: info@ggh.org.pg

Story by Dr. William Mol (Specialist Medical Officer in Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery)

The only head and neck surgery team in the highlands region, is based at Goroka General Hospital. The team consists of Dr. Sam Endican (Specialist Medical Officer in Ear-Nose-Throat and Head and Neck Surgery), Dr. Matupi Apaio (Specialist Medical Officer in Oral and Maxillo-Facial Surgery) and Dr. William Mol (Specialist Medical Officer in Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery). This team of specialist Drs has visited Mt. Hagen General Hospital from April 13th to 18th 2009 (5 days).

This time, the team visited Mendi General Hospital, from June 8th to 13th 2009 (5 days). Dr. Michael Dokup, a senior Ear-Nose-Throat and Head and Neck Surgeon and Director of Medical Services at Hagen General Hospital, accompanied the team. He went one day ahead to sort out administrative matters as well as to short list the patients. Most of the equipments the team uses are donated ones, a few are privately purchased.
More than 80 patients were seen and a reasonable number of patients were operated on. The main services provided were:

1. Hearing tests & interpretation
2. Surgery for oral & nasopharyngeal cancers & benign growths
3. Excision of lumps & bumps particularly in the head & neck area
4. Management of maxillofacial fractures
5. Teaching of surgical registrars to manage common surgical problems encountered in the head & neck area
6. Management of cleft lip & palate

The few hiccups we faced were:

1. Bumpy road conditions that are detrimental to some of our equipments
2. No ‘Stryker’ saw and complete maxilla-facial surgery set
3. No loupe for mobile microsurgery
4. No portable Ear-Nose-Throat diagnostic set

Nevertheless, the performance of the staff at Mendi General Hospital, were impressive. No major complications were encountered. The nursing staffs were quick to learn the techniques and requirements of a head and neck surgery unit. The registered Medical Drs there displayed a tremendous amount of keenness to learn head and neck surgery, especially Dr. Gabriel Kune and Dr. Jones. We are planning to visit Mendi General Hospital again and this time may be for more than a week.

In the long run & the broader perspective, if there was a histopathology unit, a radiology unit with a CT scan in place and a neurosurgeon somewhere within the highlands region, then by utilizing their services, we will have provided the expected international standard or level of service. However, we are still looking for funding and sponsors to completely equip our team. Meanwhile we are doing our very best with our limited resources and manpower.

Finally, the team is planning to visit Kundiawa general hospital in early July this year.

[Show as slideshow]

The PNG Health Forum has been moved to the PNG Hospitals Online website. The updated URL if you wish to visit the Forum directly is: http://pnghospitals.info/forum/. This Forum has been setup for the benefit of those PNG Health professionals fortunate enough to have access to the Internet to share ideas and thoughts on all matters and issues related to Health.

Story by Dr. William Mol (Specialist Medical Officer in Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery)

The only head & neck surgery unit in the highlands region, is based at Goroka General Hospital. The team consist of Dr. Sam Endican (Specialist Medical Officer in Ear-Nose-Throat & Head & Neck Surgery), Dr. Matupi Apaio (Specialist Medical Officer in Oral & Maxillo-facial Surgery) and Dr. William Mol (Specialist Medical Officer in Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery). This is the first of each kind where such a team of specialist Drs has visited Mt. Hagen General Hospital. In the past, only the ENT or the maxillo-facial team has visited the Mt. Hagen General Hospital. This visit was from April 13th to 18th 2009 (5 days).

The category of patients seen includes those with suspected Head & Neck Cancers, Vascular anomalies, facial bone fractures. A good number of cases were operated on. Nevertheless, the problems we faced were:

1. Patients were not short listed well as some patients that we saw could have been treated by the general practitioners or the general surgeons.

2. Because of slowness in patient preparations, the operations were started late and finished early, as a result, we ran out of time and many cases were deferred.

3. The theatre staffs were not familiar with the set up required for our cases; as a result the preparations were too slow, resulting in a huge loss time.

4. No surgical registrars allocated to assist our team resulting also in loss time doing their part of the job.

5. The only anaesthetic technical officer was overworked.
To improve on our next visit, we propose to include in our team, at least 1 registrar, an anaesthetist and a nurses. We have scheduled our team to visit the other highlands regions regularly, including Kundiawa, Mendi & Wabag throughout this year.

[Show as slideshow]

Rural Outreach program is one of the programs that Goroka General Hospital revitalized within its establishment since 2005, which thereafter actively executes its vision and objectives. Progressively the hospital restructured its positions in 2006 and created Rural Outreach Unit to support Primary Health Services to fulfill one of its functions as stipulated in the National Health Plan. The hospital management was supportive and declared; “2007 as the year of Rural Outreach”.

Read more about the Eastern Highlands Province Rural Outreach Program.

There is an immediate vacancy for an obstetrician and gynaecologist for the hospital. Due to the nationwide shortage of obstetrician and gynaecologist which may continue for the next ten years or so, we are now seeking to employ specialists from overseas.

Here are some facts about the place and the opportunity for anyone out there who is interested.

Goroka Hospital is one of the major teaching hospitals of the country and is situated in the heart of the highlands region. The township has a population of about 60,000 mostly nationals but a good number from other nationalities such as, Europeans, Asians, Americans, Africans, Australians and the Pacific Islanders also live here. Majority of the provinces 500,000 people live in the villages, scattered all over the province, similar to other provinces in the nation. Goroka is the headquarters of the Coffee Industry Corporation (www.coffeecorp.org.pg) with many well established different processing and exporting companies and celebrates a coffee show in May every year, a major tourist attraction. It also has a modern shopping facilities and a good local market where a choice of local food products are sold daily. It has a good international school (adapting NSW, Australian Syllabus) for children from kindergarten to senior high schools for the well off and expatriate communities (www.iea.ac.pg). There is also the New Tribes International School adapting the American Syllabus and academic year.

Other important National Institutions are the Institute of Medical Research (www.imr.org.pg) which is situated within the hospitals vicinity, the National Sports Institute, the Coffee Research Institute and the University of Goroka (www.uog.ac.pg)
We also have the head quarters of the New Tribes Mission (www.ntm.org/pg) and Summer Institute of Linguistics (www.sil.org.pg); all American Missionaries who translate the Christian Bible into to the 800 different languages of the country.

GOROKA HOSPITAL.

It is a 310 bed hospital with all major disciplines such as medicine, surgery, paediatrics and obstetric and gynaecology. Other minor disciplines are anaesthesia, ophthalmology, dentistry, psychiatry and ear, nose and throat. We have excellent support services such as physiotherapy, pathology, radiology and pharmacy divisions.

Because of the majority of the population is scattered everywhere in the province in isolated hamlets in tribes and clans we also have the ambulatory rural outreach team who are responsible for the care of these people and have unique programs to reach the outback.

The disease pattern of the highlands female population is quite unique. We have the highest pelvic inflammatory diseases and cervical cancer admissions rate in the nation. Obstetric care and management is quite challenging in our setting given the type of health care delivery system in such a diverse socio-cultural settings. This may contribute to the high maternal mortality rate of about 860 deaths per 100,000 life births and maybe one of the worst in the world. (2006 report)

The obstetric and gynaecology ward has 60 beds and 8 delivery suits. About 6,500 inpatients and 4000 deliveries are respectively admitted and done annually.
We have a national specialist with three (3) other registrars and four (interns) residents who manage the units. This specialist will be leaving for Melbourne, Australia early next year and there is no replacement in the foreseeable future. This happens to be the only specialist who is responsible for the entire highlands region with a combined population of about 3 million, half the country’s population of 6 million people. Beside the burden of looking after the female population of the entire highlands region the national specialist is affiliated to the University of Goroka and teaches postgraduate nursing students as well as post graduate medical officers of the University of Papua New Guinea.

THE POSITION.

The vacant positions (two positions, GGHRH004 and GGHMS005) are the hospital specialist positions and we are currently liaising with the department of health and personnel management to endorse our proposal to employ expatriate consultants from overseas against these positions because of the urgency and the nature of the situation we are facing at the moment.

The person or two we are seeking for consultant specialists will oversee the entire clinical management of inpatients in the hospital including operative surgical services, training of medical officers (affiliate to both universities), chief advisor to the hospital board, researches into all aspect of maternal (clinical and public) health and of course maybe required by the other four highlands government hospitals for service delivery as well as training.

The local salary is not attractive compared to the international standard and is not a place to make one a fortune. However, compared to most local salaries it is more and together with the international monetary allowances (IMA) it would be more than enough to get by comfortably.
Secure and reasonable accommodation is provided within the expatriate compound or section free of charge except for one’s own electricity, water and sewage bills which is reasonable. Hospital transport is provided during working hours. The hospital is also responsible for the leave fares to the country of origin and back for its employee, the spouse and children under the age of 18 after every24 months of continuous service.

So if you are enthusiastic about working in a developing country where lots of challenges are at your doorsteps every now and then, do get in touch with me +675 731 2101,
facsimile +675 732 1081 or email at ggh@datec.net.pg or info@ggh.org.pg

Thank you,

DR.JOSEPH APA
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER