Northern Provincial Hospital

The vehicle was handed over to the hospital’s management in a ceremony on Tuesday.

 “We will use it for health outreaches, rehabilitation services, home visits and for staff transportation,” said the NPH management team.

The 18th Chinese Medical Team to NPH in Santo leaves at the end of the week after spending over two years providing service and support to NPH.

The Chinese Medical Team has been serving in Vanuatu since 1996.

They were instrumental in the support and response to TC Harold in 2020 and the Ambae evacuation in 2017-2018.

The medical equipment arrived in four containers, two each for the hospitals.

The donation includes anesthesia machines, oxygen generators, premature incubator, ECG machines, ICU beds and personnel protective equipment such as medical masks and surgical gowns and caps, shows cover and first-aid packets.

The Chinese Ambassador to Vanuatu, Zhou Haicheng said this is the seventh donation provided by China to Vanuatu in response to COVID-19

With a huge amount of experience and dedicated health staff, NPH has taken ownership to activate its EOC, plan for the worst and involve all its partners as early as last week.

NPH is the first hospital to activate its EOC at the request of senior health staff and hospital Acting Medical Superintendent, Dr Andy Ilo.

“Hospital EOC’s become the leading command and control centre for our health services and it allows partners to attend briefings in the morning so that we are all on the same page when tasks are handed out for the day,” Dr Ilo said.

The health week started on Monday with a parade from Luganville main town to the event centre at the Northern Provincial Hospital grounds.

The theme of the health week is ‘Sustaining Health through Unity’

According to the organisers various topics like communicable disease, non-communicable disease and nursing career pathways will be discussed.

The highlight is a panel discussion on Friday about the increase in NCD cases.

Photo supplied Caption: Health awareness posters on display in a booth at Northern Provincial Hospital.