According to a piece in today’s Solomon Star newspaper, the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and Member of Parliament for East Honiara, Douglas Ete last week re-echoed the argument to have an independent board to oversee clinical and corporate governance of the National Referral Hospital.
Mr.Ete who is also a former Chief Executive Officer of NRH said this argument has been on the radar for more than a decade now.
He was debating the 2021 Budget in Parliament
Mr.Ete told Parliament that currently clinical governance is administered by the Hospital Medical Superintendent and overall by the CEO.
He added that the clinical protocols are guided by the EML and other medical protocol codes and procedures.
“Given the situation sir, I recommend he NRH consider sorting out the Medical Records department.
“Also Doctors, as opposed to Nurse on-call system, have always been at the wards when they are on call,” he added.
For doctors, Mr.Ete said they stay at their homes and are called when the need arises but this has over the year attracted laxity and absenteeism during on-call.
“So I am urging the Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) to consider this as a reform item in their agenda,” Mr.Ete added.
Meanwhile in separate news related to the NRH, the Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical, Mrs. Pauline McNeil, informed the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last week that work on the CT Scan project is ongoing and the ministry aims to complete the project this year.
She said that last year the philanthropists were not able to donate the equipment because the COVID-19 pandemic hindered their plan to raise funds to purchase and donate this equipment.
Therefore, it has fallen back on the Ministry to procure the equipment and other service contracts this year to carry on with the project.
According to the PAC report, the ministry’s development budget allocation for this year is $44.8 million which will be a challenge because of other competing priorities but the aim will be to complete the project this year.
The CEO of the NRH stated that the building for the scan will be completed by the end of April and equipment will be purchased after the budget is passed.
Due to travel restrictions the equipment will be assembled in Australia and shipped to Honiara.
Training is underway on how to handle this advanced diagnostic medical tool.
Annual license fees will have to be paid for maintenance services because all databases will be hosted and kept overseas.
Additionally, the equipment will require a very high supply of electricity which Solomon Power is working to increase from 300kva to 759kva and two Gensets with a capacity of 1000kva each.
The CT scan project is said to be part of the DCGA’s priority plans.
It is claimed, in this year’s fiscal year the MHMS gets $630.184 million dollars.
Source: Solomon Star News.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
