The staff of Goroka General Hospital – after unpacking the large container – say thank to The Wesley Hospital for this kind gesture and much needed equipment

Goroka General Hospital received delivery this morning of 40′ foot container – packed with much needed equipment – courtesy of The Wesley Hospital in Brisbane. This generous gesture is very much appreciated by Hospital management and staff – the contents will directly benefit the patients of the Hospital and ultimately the public of the Eastern Highlands Province in Papua New Guinea.

Thank You Wesley Hospital!!

A slideshow of the photos taken this morning can be viewed below

[Show as slideshow]

12345►

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]

(Latest Update as of 25th of May 2009)

May
29th Obstetrics & Gynaecology

June
5th Paediatrics
12thOphthalmology
19th A/E & Out Patient,
26th Rural Health / Outreach Team
27th Infection Control

July
3rd Michael Alper’s Clinic / Clinton Foundation
10th Radiology / Radiography Department
17th Pharmacy / Dispensary
24th Human Resources (including Personal or Pay/Salary Section)
31st Administration (Hospital Management/CEO’s office,  Accounts & DMS’  office)

August
7th Nursing Care (All Nurses)
14th PNG Institute of Medical Research (PNGIMR)
21st Pathology (Laboratory Sciences)
28th Dental / Dentistry

*Note: This schedule will be updated regularly because of cancellations & visiting presenters. Please prepare your presentations ahead of your scheduled dates, as last minute cancellations cause a lot of inconveniences for others.

Updated by Dr. Mol, 25 May 2009

Story by Jenny Balnaves (Visiting midwife from the Highland’s Foundation)

We arrived here, four midwives from Australia.

One, Nicole returning for the second time and the other three Deb, Mary and Jenny who were here for their 1st experience in PNG.  Our expectations were all different.  Nicole wanted to focus on neonatal nursing as her recent background is working in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Melbourne.  Deb and Jenny have been midwives for some years and Mary is a student midwife that has almost completed her training.  Mary’s focus was to complete her clinical experience in order to attain her qualification on return to Australia.

One major plan was to ensure the safe delivery of a container full of health equipment, mother / baby packs and other health necessities but unfortunately this did not arrive due to unforeseen problems.  what is in the container is meant for many of the outreach health clinics as well as Goroka Hospital and we hope that when it finally does arrive the staff here will work out Nicole’s plans and ensure all those goods meet their appropriate destinations.

We have encountered many different people and fortunately our contacts with PNG people have been without incident.  The people here are a gentle race and are beautiful in the way they respond to our greetings.  The labour ward is a constant hive of activity with women arriving in labour at any time of the day or night.  The full time team who work within the ward must feel great satisfaction in knowing their job is to ensure safe birthing for both mothers and babies.  The many “pikaninis” whose births we have witnessed will at some stage be reminded by their mothers that they were touched by white “meri’s” who came to work with the local staff.  Having come here has given us strong objectives for our next trip through the Highlands Foundation and we are immensely grateful for having had this experience.

We would very much like to thank Sonia, and Lucy for showing us their PNG way of life.  Sonia took us to her village one weekend and this gave us much insight into her “wantoks” world away from the hospital.   Through the Clinical outreach Group we visited Nupuru and Kainantu.  We saw conditions that are very basic, and the main impact for us was how the hard workers cope so well with so little.

There are still great inroads to be made in this environment as equipment is minimal, but through it all people work with a hope for the future.  With confirmed support from such groups as the Highlands Foundation there will be a future for all.

So many stories and so little time to say what we feel.

Tenkyu tru Goroka.

Lookim yu bihain.

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 Tom Blanks and Will Kerss (Visiting medical students from Nottingham Medical School, England)

We are Tom Blanks and Will Kerss, two recently qualified doctors from Nottingham Medical School, England. We are given a 9 week elective period following completion of our final exams. We heard good reviews from other English medical students about the hospital and decided to travel to Goroka General.

Having arrived at Goroka airport from England after a long series of flights, we were immediately taken under the wing of two residents and one registrar, who took it upon themselves to get us sorted out with accomodation in a local hostel.

On our first day at the hospital itself; the DMS, Dr. Frank, took us on a tour of the hospital and allowed us to familiarise ourselves with the layout and grounds of the site. We were allowed to set our own itinaries, splitting our time between Internal Medicine, Surgery and Paediatrics.

Will began on Internal Medicine being thrown in at the deep end by joining on a ward round.  Each day the ward rounds continued until lunchtime and were followed by ward work in the afternoons.  the doctors were incredibly keen to get me involved with procedures which spanned from placing nasogastric tubes, to performing pleural and abdominal taps as well as lumbar puntures solo.  This  improved my skill set as back in England doing such procedures at our stage of training would not be possible.  I was also exposed to illneses such as Typhoid, TB and malaria, all of which are very rare in the UK and hence broadened my knowledge of such pathologies.  After medicine I spent some time on the surgical ward and was able to assist during theatre, and perform incisions and suturing during the minor operations.

Tom began on Surgery and from the first ward round onwards noticed the massive difference in pathologies from the UK. On this ward round I was exposed to abdominal TB, neurofibromatosis and typhoid perforations; conditions unheard of in the UK and as such fascinating. One of the most impressive aspects of the ward-work was the ability of the residents to adapt their techniques and skills to fit any situation and get a job done despite setbacks. My time spent in theatre was equally impressive, with residents at our stage performing single-handed appendicetomies, abscess drainages and suturing; tasks performed by much higher grades back in the UK. I was allowed to take a very active part in both ward work and theatre; from suturing to plastering. I then moved to Medicine; and was thrown straight into performing lumbar punctures amidst a vast array of TB presentations; again a extremely interesting experience. My final attachment was in Paediatrics, where again I was allowed to perform venepuncture, cannulation and lumbar punctures; vastly broadening my practical skills and clinical experience.

Both of us would like to thank all of the residents, registrars, nurses and consultants that made our stay such an incredibly interesting and enjoyable experience. We both had a fantastic time and return to the UK with a far wider understanding of medical challenges faced by other countries, as well as a greatly improved set of clinical skills! Another thank you to all of the administrative staff that helped us with accomodation, internet usage and settling into life in Goroka; and a last thank you to all the staff of the IMR, especially Lawrence for all his help.

Story by Sr. Lucy Mahabi (Deputy Director Nursing – Rural Outreach Services)

The Rural Outreach Services team was up at 7am and left at about 8.20am for the Nupuru Health centre visit on the 29 /04 /09. When we arrived the patients were waiting to be seen by the team.  We quickly sorted ourselves out to the rooms allocated by the health Centre staff. Then we started seeing the patients booked for us.

We had two Australian Visiting midwives from the Highlands Foundation (Debbie & Jenny) with us that helped with screening of all antenatals. And prior to that we gave some baby packs to the waiting mothers which they were asked to bring with them during labour. This is one way of encouraging women to deliver at the Health centres rather then a village delivery without supervision.

We also handed out knitted wollen baby clothes kindly donated by the Highlands Foundation and Rotary to several children that were waiting with their mothers.

There was one delivery attended to by the Australian visiting midwives and in the true spirit of Highlands culture the mother decided to name her newly born baby boy after Debbie’s husband. Although we had to improvise during the birth our Australian friends seemed to cope very well.

The total number of patients seen on the day was about 112 (Paediatrics 4, Medical 37, Surgical 3, Physiotherapy 14, Dental 14, Gynaecology 20, Antenatals 20 and 1 delivery).

All on all we had a very productive and rewarding visit to Nupuru Health Center – we finished at about 2.30pm, had a late lunch and left to return to Goroka at about 3pm.

[Show as slideshow]

12►