THE Minister of Health and Medical Services the Hon Dr Paul Popora Bosawai yesterday visited Lata Hospital and met with the Hospital Staff, including doctors, nurses, and health workers.
The Minister made an inaugural visit to Lata yesterday with the Australian High Commissioner Rod Hilton and a high-level delegation from the National Government and Australia for the launch of the Bio-Medical Laboratory.
After the launch, Minister Dr Bosawai took the opportunity to tour around the hospital where he visited the outpatient ward, the x-ray room, the women’s’, men’s’ and children’s’ wards, the malaria lab, the mini theatre and the hospital pharmacy. He also visited the old medical laboratory that was replaced by the newly launched bio med lab.
At the Pharmacy, the Minister met with officers and had lengthy discussions about placing orders with the National Medical Stores, items that were fast and slow running, challenges faced in getting the medication to Lata from the National Medical Stores (Honiara) and challenges in distributing medical supplies to Area health centres, rural clinics and nurse aid posts in the province. Minister Dr Bosawai and PS McNeil also took the opportunity to review the current order forms and informed the officers that they were going to review and amend the forms and processes so that medicine supplies to the provinces could be done swiftly and efficiently to avoid shortages.
After the short hospital tour, the Minister the Hon Dr Bosawai together with his executive held a staff meeting with the nurses, doctors, health workers and staff at the hospital, where they were updated of current priorities, actions taken to improve systems and processes and future outlooks. Discussions also centred around challenges faced working in remote areas and the welfare of staff.
The Minister took the opportunity to acknowledge and thank the staff and hospital workers for their commitment in upholding and overseeing the continuation of health service delivery in the Province, despite the many challenges they faced in such a remote location. He encouraged them to continue with the awesome work they were doing to saving lives and providing basic healthcare to the people of Temotu Province.
Minister Bosawai also used the opportunity to raise the serious concern of medicine shortage and informed them of the steps he and his executive were taking to deal with it. He emphasized that the sale of medication was a serious offence and officers found guilty of the offence would be dealt with by the law.
Meanwhile staff of the hospital thanked the Minister and the Executive for setting aside time from their busy schedules to meet with them to discuss and to answer questions raised by staff at the hospital. They expressed appreciation for the high-level visit to the Provincial Hospital.
