Good medicine
A health care partnership delivering a new level of service in PNG
Private-public partnerships are the best way for Papua New Guinea to meet its health needs, according to Sandeep Shaligram, the chief executive officer of the Pacific International Hospital.
The Port Moresby-based private hospital started 23 years ago as a specialty clinic and a diagnostic centre, filling gaps in the government’s services such as computed tomography (CT) scans and cataract surgery.
“We have done a large number of cataract surgeries on a not-for-profit basis and still continue to do so in all of those places which have no access to medical services,” Shaligram says.
More recently, in 2015, Pacific International relocated to a state-of-the-art tertiary care multi-specialty hospital at Three Mile/ Taurama in a partnership with three major state-owned enterprises: MRDC, KCH and MVIL.
The hospital is the first of its kind in PNG, and includes a cardiac catheterisation laboratory (for diagnosis of heart problems) and a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine.
It is also the only hospital in PNG with interventional cardiology and cardiac surgery, an endoscopy suite and a minimally invasive surgery suite for laparoscopic, arthroscopic and endoscopic facilities.”
Shaligram says the hospital’s specialty is giving the advanced and tertiary health care that has not previously been available in the country.
“We have a fully-fledged intensive care unit and the catheterisation lab is the biggest (medical) addition to the country.”
It is the first and only catheterisation lab in PNG. The nearest is in Australia.
“We are also trying to bring these services in at an affordable cost because the cost of going to Australia or the Philippines is prohibitive,” Shaligram says.
He says that similar services in the Philippines are more than three times
The hospital’s specialty is giving the advanced and tertiary health care that has not previously been available in the country.
more expensive, and in Australia more than five times more expensive. In addition, there are travel costs and the need for patients to leave their home environment.
Shaligram says health is one of the important state functions. “It is structured that way because the primary health care responsibility still remains with the government.
“Any company working outside that can have only a very limited reach. So that means our reach is extended (with the new 2015 hospital partnership).”
Shaligram says one of his biggest challenges is getting trained people. One of his ambitions is to train enough locals to replace expatriate workers.
He is also looking at starting a nursing college.
“You require highly trained people. Right now, my only source is expats. There is a reason for that. How do you train a local in how to use a catheterisation lab when you don’t have that in the country?”
Finding the right technology is also challenging. “Sourcing any kind of medical technology is hard and very complicated,” he says.
“Sourcing medical technology is not an enterprise planned out for a couple of years or a couple of months. It is an enterprise planned out for the next three decades at least,” he says. The sourcing program has to cater for the long term because medical technology becomes obsolete quickly.