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Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Porter's death in decrepit hospital

ROWAN CALLICK, ASIA-PACIFIC EDITOR
The Australian 
 September 17, 2013


SIX Papua New Guinea porters have been transferred to an international hospital in Lae after a third victim of the Black Cat Track attacks died, apparently of infection and heart failure, in the substandard facility to which all the local survivors were initially sent.
Lae International Hospital chairman Malcolm Lewis said when he visited Angau public hospital on Sunday, one of the men was lying in blood-soaked bandages on a blood-soaked bed.
Lionel Aigilo...the latest porter to die

"Another, who'd just had an operation, was lying on an inch-thick mattress on the floor in pain," Mr Lewis said. "Most had infections, but none had penicillin drips. They were just copping it. It was terrible."
Prime Minister Peter O'Neill was promised priority funding from his then counterpart Kevin Rudd for a $355 million renovation to the dilapidated hospital, the cost to be shared equally as a part of the PNG asylum-seeker deal.
Mr Lewis said food and water for the injured porters had not been provided by Angau, but was brought into the hospital by staff from the Newcrest-run Morobe Mining venture as well as by Daniel King, whose wife Christie was the guide who led the Australians and one New Zealander attacked on the trek to safety.
Mr Lewis, an Australian whose Lae-based engineering firm Hornibrook NGI employs more than 1000, said when the porters were taken to Angau last week only one doctor and a nurse were working.
Power outages, he said, had caused operations to be postponed. On Sunday, when Lae International had sought to obtain specially donated blood so it could prepare to operate on the porters, the Angau blood bank was closed all day because it was a long weekend; Independence Day followed yesterday and hospital management had been unavailable. "We know what happens in Angau," he said, its main buildings having collapsed from white-ant infestation. "People die."
Mr Lewis's wife, Sherron, managing director at Lae International Hospital, said the new facility was built four years ago with the help of a team including Queensland orthopaedic surgeon Greg Day.
"In Lae, just hours from the country (Australia) that has one of the best standards of medical care in the world, people suffer and die alone," Mrs Lewis said.
"We don't need a medical fund for the porters. That sort of thing obscures the whole issue and becomes 'band-aid therapy'. We are now treating them for free. 
"What is needed . . . is attention from both the domestic community and from international friends to get our public hospital up to a standard where it can at least get the basic standards right. That would really help."

Porter's death in decrepit hospital

SIX Papua New Guinea porters have been transferred to an international hospital in Lae after a third victim of the Black Cat Track attacks died, apparently of infection and heart failure, in the substandard facility to which all the local survivors were initially sent.
Lae International Hospital chairman Malcolm Lewis said when he visited Angau public hospital on Sunday, one of the men was lying in blood-soaked bandages on a blood-soaked bed.
"Another, who'd just had an operation, was lying on an inch-thick mattress on the floor in pain," Mr Lewis said. "Most had infections, but none had penicillin drips. They were just copping it. It was terrible."
Prime Minister Peter O'Neill was promised priority funding from his then counterpart Kevin Rudd for a $355 million renovation to the dilapidated hospital, the cost to be shared equally as a part of the PNG asylum-seeker deal.
Mr Lewis said food and water for the injured porters had not been provided by Angau, but was brought into the hospital by staff from the Newcrest-run Morobe Mining venture as well as by Daniel King, whose wife Christie was the guide who led the Australians and one New Zealander attacked on the trek to safety.
Mr Lewis, an Australian whose Lae-based engineering firm Hornibrook NGI employs more than 1000, said when the porters were taken to Angau last week only one doctor and a nurse were working.
Power outages, he said, had caused operations to be postponed. On Sunday, when Lae International had sought to obtain specially donated blood so it could prepare to operate on the porters, the Angau blood bank was closed all day because it was a long weekend; Independence Day followed yesterday and hospital management had been unavailable. "We know what happens in Angau," he said, its main buildings having collapsed from white-ant infestation. "People die."
Mr Lewis's wife, Sherron, managing director at Lae International Hospital, said the new facility was built four years ago with the help of a team including Queensland orthopaedic surgeon Greg Day.
"In Lae, just hours from the country (Australia) that has one of the best standards of medical care in the world, people suffer and die alone," Mrs Lewis said.
"We don't need a medical fund for the porters. That sort of thing obscures the whole issue and becomes 'band-aid therapy'. We are now treating them for free.
"What is needed . . . is attention from both the domestic community and from international friends to get our public hospital up to a standard where it can at least get the basic standards right. That would really help."
- See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/porters-death-in-decrepit-hospital/story-e6frg6nf-1226720485698#sthash.hnUDdVXA.dpuf

Porter's death in decrepit hospital

SIX Papua New Guinea porters have been transferred to an international hospital in Lae after a third victim of the Black Cat Track attacks died, apparently of infection and heart failure, in the substandard facility to which all the local survivors were initially sent.
Lae International Hospital chairman Malcolm Lewis said when he visited Angau public hospital on Sunday, one of the men was lying in blood-soaked bandages on a blood-soaked bed.
"Another, who'd just had an operation, was lying on an inch-thick mattress on the floor in pain," Mr Lewis said. "Most had infections, but none had penicillin drips. They were just copping it. It was terrible."
Prime Minister Peter O'Neill was promised priority funding from his then counterpart Kevin Rudd for a $355 million renovation to the dilapidated hospital, the cost to be shared equally as a part of the PNG asylum-seeker deal.
Mr Lewis said food and water for the injured porters had not been provided by Angau, but was brought into the hospital by staff from the Newcrest-run Morobe Mining venture as well as by Daniel King, whose wife Christie was the guide who led the Australians and one New Zealander attacked on the trek to safety.
Mr Lewis, an Australian whose Lae-based engineering firm Hornibrook NGI employs more than 1000, said when the porters were taken to Angau last week only one doctor and a nurse were working.
Power outages, he said, had caused operations to be postponed. On Sunday, when Lae International had sought to obtain specially donated blood so it could prepare to operate on the porters, the Angau blood bank was closed all day because it was a long weekend; Independence Day followed yesterday and hospital management had been unavailable. "We know what happens in Angau," he said, its main buildings having collapsed from white-ant infestation. "People die."
Mr Lewis's wife, Sherron, managing director at Lae International Hospital, said the new facility was built four years ago with the help of a team including Queensland orthopaedic surgeon Greg Day.
"In Lae, just hours from the country (Australia) that has one of the best standards of medical care in the world, people suffer and die alone," Mrs Lewis said.
"We don't need a medical fund for the porters. That sort of thing obscures the whole issue and becomes 'band-aid therapy'. We are now treating them for free.
"What is needed . . . is attention from both the domestic community and from international friends to get our public hospital up to a standard where it can at least get the basic standards right. That would really help."
- See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/porters-death-in-decrepit-hospital/story-e6frg6nf-1226720485698#sthash.hnUDdVXA.dpuf

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