Hospital fetching water from creeks to maintain operations

KUNDIAWA General Hospital has been fetching water from creeks to keep its operations going, hospital chief executive officer Dr Francis Wandi says.
“Water supply has been inconsistent; we fetch water from creeks three to four times a day,” he said.
“The hospital cannot operate without water.”
Wandi told The National on Friday that water supply had been a big issue for the hospital as well as Kundiawa town since last year.
“We have to make water available at the hospital to keep the services running and the question is how do we make this happen?” he said.
“We hire water tankers to fetch water from the creeks outside of town to maintain the supply of water in the hospital. They don’t fetch the water from the creeks for free.

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“We pay for the water, fuel and the hire car, which are additional costs to the hospital.”
Wandi said it was very risky for trucks to transport water from the creeks to the hospital due to the landscape.
“There had been two accidents with our water trucks, but fortunately, there were no casualties,” he said. “Trucks that were purchased for other reasons were turned into water-fetching trucks.
“But as much as possible, we try to maintain water supply that way because we also get patients from around the country.
“We are going out of our way to maintain the water supply not only for the hospital but for our staff as well. Wandi said they paid operators to refill tanks at staff houses and quarters.
“We are going out of our way to maintain water supply at all cost.
“We hope that we get the water reconnected as soon as possible with the new contract of restoration of water funded by PNG Water Board,” Wandi said.

The National / PNG Health Watch

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