Gaubin Health Centre needs recognition

The Gaubin Health Centre in Simkar District of Madang province needs major facelift to function as a level four hospital.

At present, the Lutheran run health facility is only on level three referral health centre catering for more than 70 thousand population in the Island and other nearby mainland too.

A team of health facilities and experts from the National Department of Health had visited the site last week to access the facility.

Team leader and health facilities Manager, Ambrose Kwaramb has addressed a capacity crowd at the Gaubin that the health centre needs rehabilitation and manpower and that more improvement was needed.

“The health centre looks massive in size. From the outside view, you are already a hospital but we have standards to assess the facility,” Mr Kwaramb said.

However, we follow standard requirements that calls for health facilities to be rated accordingly.
The team identified many areas that needs to be installed to elevate to a hospital level though, the Gaubin health center has claimed the health centre has operated as a hospital.

“Most of the requirement for a level four is not here including dental care, anesthetics, consultation services and more,” Chief Radiologist of the country, Dr Dora Lenturut-Katal said.

The health centre needed more infrastructure maintenances including sewage pipe, twenty-four hour safe water running system and proper disposal areas and the rooms needs more arrangements,” Dr Lenturut said.

The health centre was built during colonial era in 1970 from war wreckages from Finchafen District in Morobe Province by a German Doctor, Edwin Tscharke.

The health centre was formally named after the founder as Tscharke Memorial Hospital, according to German orthopedic surgeon and German national Doctor Florien Schwoebel.

Dr Schwoeble’s wife Katri is also a doctor who assists in her free time. The duo works around the clock with the help of a local staff to maintain the flow of service delivery.

Meanwhile, the member for Sumkar Hon Chris Yar Nangoi, welcome the response by the National Department of Health and the Health Minister Dr Puka Temu for making time available to visit Gaubin.

Hon Nangoi made a call earlier in the last Parliament for his health centre and he was determined to help in areas where his people needed help stating that his “focus is on health”.

He personally flew up to Madang to meet with the technical team from the national health department for responding to his call.

“I thank the Minister for Health and the Health Secretary for quickly responding to my call for the. I appreciate the kind of approach and that should practice at all levels,” he said.

In a short briefing with the team at Modilon Hospital, the Honorable member took note of the gaps highlighted to him and other areas that need to be filled for the health facility to be upgraded to level four.

Hon Nangoi also revealed that he would strengthen the communication system in his district and he urged the health team to present the proper copy of the report to him.