By HARLYNE JOKU and NOBERT KOKE
THE head of Port Moresby General Hospital (PMGH) Dr Paki Molumi will be the first Papua New Guinean to take the Covid-19 AstraZeneca Vaccine dose on Tuesday thus, leading senior health workers and front-liners in the rollout vaccination program throughout the country.
This is despite negative publicity spread on social media against the vaccine.
Dr Molumi announced on Friday afternoon at a press conference at PMGH’s Human Resource Lawn that he will be the first to begin the Covid-19 vaccine programme.
“The vaccination rollout programme will begin with myself as the CEO of PMGH, my directors, the managers, senior doctors and nurses and corporate services staff.
“By taking the vaccine, we will be protected against the severe diseases and as a result we will be confident to stand on the front line to provide proper health care and service to the people of this country,” Dr Molumi said.
Since the 8,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from the Australian Government arrived in Port Moresby on Tuesday March 24, PMGH health workers including doctors, nurses, administration staff and cleaners took part in a series of awareness seminars with experts, airing their views to prepare them to take the vaccine.
Dr Molumi said the awareness was needed due to the negative and unfounded publicity on the vaccine spread by the social media.
“PMGH staff has come to a conclusion after the awareness that we are ready to take the vaccine starting Tuesday,” he said.
“By taking the lead with senior management officers, we will give confidence to other staff to take the vaccine in the rollout programme.
“There will be less stress on our hospital because our health workers are protected and will continue to provide services for our hospital,” Dr Molumi said.
“Apart from TB we have Malaria, diabetes and heart diseases, life style disease that we have to manage. In the last three weeks we have diverted our attention away from these diseases to try to combat the COVID-19 crisis. The vaccine roll out program is very timely, PMGH is prepared to start up the vaccination program next week,” Dr Molumi said.
He said at the beginning of this month there was a surge of Covid-19 cases in the country more so in NCD which has affected services at PMGH.
“Many patients were admitted; currently we have 77 Covid patients admitted. Six of them are critical, meaning they are on ventilators at the isolation ward. Rita Flynn has seen large numbers coming in for second treatment requiring medication, IV drips and are being admitted at PMGH.
“On top of that we have 140 of our staff who are also positive both from community transmission and infection acquired at the hospital. Over the last three weeks, we were able to continue to maintain services despite the stress and load exerted upon on us at the hospital.
“PMGH is a premier hospital for this country. This the only hospital that provides a public emergency department, a public labour ward facility, a public pharmacy, a public radiology for the entire city, Central and Gulf province.
“We cannot afford to close down this hospital by all means. I take my hats off to my staff that has stood up despite this trying time to keep the services going.”
Molumi said over the last 72 hours they have been preparing their staff to be part of that vaccination program through zoom conferencing and seminars being presented by all senior medical professionals both in the country and abroad and this has help cleared some doubts in the staffs.
He said there has been a lot of false information that has been circulated on the social media that has scared the staff however after the sessions it has really helped the staff to get themselves ready for the vaccination program.
“The most important thing about being vaccinated is that we have to protect our staff, even if they get the disease the severity of Covid infecting them and killing them will be less, and it will give them the confidence to continue to stand in the frontline to provide service for the health of this country.
“Not only that, PMGH want to show to the rest of the country that the vaccine has started with us and that’s the message we would like to convey to the rest of workforce and population in the country. Our health work force must get vaccinated so that once they get Covid the severity will be less. This will put less stress on our hospitals and help the hospital to provide other health services,” he reiterated.
Today the number of Covid-19 cases being reported around the country stands at 4,660 positive cases with 39 deaths.