By Alfred Sasako
OUR traditional donors – Australia, Britain, New Zealand, Taiwan and Papua New Guinea – were all ready to fly in emergency life-saving drugs for the National Referral Hospital, it was revealed this week.
“They were ready to move in if the Government had declared a state of emergency,” insiders told Island Sun.
The insiders said declaring a state of emergency would have triggered an avalanche of assistance, but the fact that the government did not do so, they all held back.
The National Referral Hospital is still without life-saving blood analyser machines despite government claims that all is under control at the Hospital.
Chief Executive Officer, Steve Aumanu, told Island Sun the Hospital once had three analysers – a Haematology, a Bio-chemistry and an Electrolyte, adding these had broken down through excessive use and normal wear and tear.
The hospital is relying almost entirely on VanLab, a private laboratory and manual analysis by clinicians.
The situation forced the Hospital to approach the Office of the Prime Minister earlier this month, requesting emergency funding to acquire the machines.
Cabinet approved emergency funding to purchase replacement machines, but buying the machines had bogged down at the Ministry of Finance and Treasure which insists on following the letter on the procurement process.
The Ministry of Health and Medical Services and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are jointly pursuing the purchase.
It is not clear when the machines would arrive in Honiara.
