How many hospitals in papua new guinea

More than workers including doctors and nurses at the Port Moresby General Hospital were in isolation, The National newspaper in Port Moresby reported. Many people live in crowded households and need to walk long distances to access health services for tuberculosis, she said.

Thorold said many people earn daily cash wages by selling vegetables at markets, so a lockdown would be difficult. By Kirsty Needham 4 Min Read. But they were still dealing with major hurdles to procure basic supplies.

Some days we're short of this kind of IV fluid or the other kind of IV fluid. Sometimes we're short of gloves. I have to go and try to negotiate to get some urgently up.

This should never happen," the senior Western Highlands official said. There were reasons for hope, the doctors said, and some supplies were getting in including planeloads of personal protective equipment and ventilators donated by the likes of the World Health Organisation, Australia and New Zealand. But the supplies were still too slow in getting out to where they were needed, and procurement systems were too cumbersome, often requiring requests to be made weeks in advance.

The government - while not responding to requests for comment - has acknowledged strains. Prime Minister James Marape has spoken of "rampant community transmission". In a statement on Thursday morning, national pandemic response controller David Manning again pleaded with people to obey health measures, what the government called Niuepela Pasin - the new normal.

Authorities are struggling to get people to adhere to social distancing measures, and where lockdowns have been instigated, they've been largely flouted. The country's vaccination programme is finally getting underway.

About , doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine are due in the country under the international Covax programme, which will mostly go to frontline workers. But doctors said they were coming up against a lot of vaccine denial, even among medical staff. Western countries' decision to suspend the AstraZeneca vaccine because of a fear of blood clots had done little to help, they said. Australian officials carry boxes containing some 8, initial doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine following their arrival in Papua New Guinea.

Pacific RSS. Follow RNZ News. People travelling in from Goroka [the capital of the neighbouring Eastern Highlands Province] are a big worry as people are not observing new normal measures. We are advising people to get vaccinated. We have a shortage of man-power, with more than 30 staff down with Covid. We are in dire need of oxygen, amongst other things.

Last week, a number of measures were put into place in the province to manage the surge, including a curfew, a ban on gatherings of crowds of more than 20 people, closure of main markets and betelnut markets.

According to the provincial health authority, the hospital will be forced to shut down before Christmas if funding is further delayed. The hospital is the only public hospital in Mount Hagen and serves a population of 46, In Oro Province, a minute flight from the capital, Port Moresby, staff at Popondetta general hospital have been forced to use icebags in the morgue to help keep the freezer working.