Wednesday, 18 November 2020

More than 20 hospital staff from five provinces of the country are undergoing a three-day training on how to operate and maintain ventilators used to manage critically-ill patients suffering from severe respiratory distress.

The training, held on 17-19 November 2020 in Port Moresby, is the first of its kind in the country. The participants are from the Provincial Health Authorities of Simbu, East Sepik, East New Britain, New Ireland and Milne Bay.

The ventilators, procured by UNICEF and supported by Newcrest Mining Limited, are part of the country’s preparedness and response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in the country.

The initiative is an important investment that will save lives and help strengthen the health system.

“Since the start of COVID-19 outbreak, we have been making efforts to equip hospitals throughout the country with ventilators as part of the response to COVID-19. However, these are specialized equipment that would need special skills to operate and this training is aimed to ensure our health workers can use them correctly when they are needed,” said Controller of the COVID-19 National Pandemic Response Mr David Manning.

Ventilators are used to help patients breathe when they cannot breathe on their own for various reasons, including surgery, sudden cardiac arrest, spinal cord injury and for diseases that affect the lungs.

Mr Manning said ome people with COVID-19 also developed breathing difficulties and required the aid of ventilators to breathe.

The training is organized by UNICEF, in partnership with the National Department of Health, Port Moresby General Hospital, Society of Anaesthetists of PNG, World Health Organization, FHI 360 and Newcrest Mining Limited.

Meanwhile, the national total confirmed cases of COVID-19 remains at 604, including seven deaths. There have been no new cases reported in the last 24 hours.

Mr Manning has reiterated his call for health workers throughout the country to scale up testing, noting that there had been no samples sent to the laboratories for testing for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.

“I have seen in the daily provincial reports that we are getting cases of influenza-like Illnesses and Severe Acute Respiratory illnesses but the testing numbers are very limited. This is very concerning as we can have undetected cases that are spreading the virus to their family,” Mr Manning said.

The distribution of the cases in the country are as follows:

 

Provinces	Confirmed Cases
NCD	348
Western Province	204
Eastern H/lands	13
West New Britain	11
Central	7
Morobe	5
East Sepik	3
Milne Bay	2
East New Britain	2
Enga	2
New Ireland	2
West Sepik	1
Southern H/lands	1
AROB	1
Hela Province	1
Western H/lands	1
TOTAL	604

 

Meanwhile, the total confirmed cases around the globe has reached 54,771,888, of which 456,751 are new cases reported in the last 24 hours.

There are 1,324,429 COVID-19 deaths, including 6,871 new deaths in the last 24 hours.

 

Media contact: Chief Superintendent Dominic D. Kakas, BEM, DPS
COVID-19 Media & Public Information Joint Agency Task Force
Mobile: 75430557email: ddkakas@gmail.com
Police email:                    ddkakas.policemedia@gmail.com
COVID-19 JATF email:    ddkakas.covid19media@gmail.com