PNG Nurses are concerned that there is still no standard regime put in place for treatment of COVID patients.
PNG Nursing Association (PNGNA) President Fredrick Kabai said that COVID-19 needs to come under reportable diseases in the country and treated as other diseases.
He said that while funding has been allocated to deal with COVID-19 as a separate case, there has been no evident employment of these funds to cover all aspects of dealing with this pandemic on the frontlines.
“We nurses understand that a lot of funding has been pumped into managing COVID-19 in the country, but so far we cannot see any tangible developments of that funding.”
Mr. Kebai asked why this funding has not been utilized to build separate health facilities primarily for COVID patients, so that our hospitals will not suffer shortages while dealing with its existing patients.
He asked why these funds haven’t been used to mobilize nursing personnel and health workers, to deal with the ongoing lack of manpower. Why haven’t these frontline workers been paid their allowances while they are forced to work during this pandemic, he asked.
In saying all that, Mr. Kebai challenged the medical board of Papua New Guinea to address why there is still no standard treatment in place for COVID patients.
This being something that funding could have invested into research to determine how patients with COVID-19 are to be treated when they are brought to the hospitals, he said.
“Papua New Guinea Nursing Association would like to see that the medical board, through the Health Department, must come up with a standard treatment protocol for COVID treatment in the country.”
He said that it must be readily available and circulated around all the health facilities to ensure nurses can treat accordingly when they deal with COVID patients.
Deputy Controller Dr. Daoni Esorom has given some hint as to the developments in the clinical component of treating COVID-19 patients, but has alluded to the fact that his colleagues in the field are only being encouraged to carry out research to come up with a permanent treatment regime.
He said that as of yet, there is no official policy or standard guideline in place so they are treating patients systematically according to existing illnesses such as pneumonia or fever.