Staff

November, 2008

The Goroka General Hospital staffs were privileged to undergo the public service induction training. For some they had been working for more than ten years, while for others they had been working for only a year. The trainees included doctors, nurses, administrative staff, allied health staff and the hospital maintenance staff. All in all there was 120 staff from the hospital that attended the 2 weeks induction. The first batch of 60 in the first week and the second batch of 60 the following week.

The facilitators were from the National Department of Health as well as from the Institute of Public Administration in Port Moresby.

Topics covered in the course were:

1. Orientation to the Public Service
2. Orientation to the agency (Central and line Departments)
3. Orientation to the Agency ( Provincial)
4. Orientation to the job.

The public service in PNG is often termed as ineffective or disorientated and I believe as a participant that this is because many public servants have not been inducted or due to the fact that there has not been any refresher courses for older public servants on the code of ethics, the Public Service ‘General Orders’ and lack of general quality supervision from supervisors at all levels.

With many more of these Inductions planned for other provinces and the PSWDI sponsored development of ten Basic Modules to help public servants to develop their core competencies in their jobs, the Public Service culture can be revolutionized.

A big thank you to the Management of Goroka General Hospital for releasing its staff and funding and also the NDOH/PNGIPA for facilitating and co funding the Induction.

We all hope that there can be a cultural change in Productivity and efficiency in our hospital now that we have been educated and inducted.

Finally, ‘an EDUCATED Public Service is an EFFECTIVE Public Service’.

Dr Paul WARI
Participant.

Facilities Manager for Goroka General Hospital MR Timothy Kairi travelled to the United States last month to pay a factory visit and do hands training on a Medical Oxygen Generating Plant which the Hospital has purchased in collaboration with National Department of Health .

Goroka General Hospital is the first Hospital in the country which has gone ahead and is setting up the Medical Oxygen Generating Plant. Premier Bio – a Medical Engineering Company is the local agent in Papua New Guinea which will do the installation on behalf of the Air SEP Corporation of Buffalo in the United States.

Currently BOC is the only supplier of all Medical Oxygen and other medical gases in the country . Goroka General Hospital uses a tremendous amount of Medical Oxygen for the benefit of the patients every day. When there are natural disasters and/or landslides this can potentially cut off the highway from Lae for more than a week. In addition to the highway access, there is frequently a shortage of Oxygen supply which can impact this Hospital as well as other Hospitals in the Highlands Region.

The Hospital is expecting that the issue of much needed Medical Oxygen supply will now be resolved with the installation of this new Oxygen Generation plant.

Thank you,

Timothy Kairi
Facilities Manager