PIH - The hospital of death

The Pacific international Hospital’s “No Cash, No Treatment” policy has  resulted in yet another death – this time of a 10 year old boy.

Kua Dom,  was rushed to the private hospital  by his mother on the 3^rd of January  following severe stomach pains but staff at the hospital refused to treat  the boy  because the money  his mother had on hand at the time of the  emergency was insufficient.

         Kua’s  father, Steven Dom, a senior army officer   who was away on duty travel in Wewak gave   assurances that he would pay the hospital bills  later that day  but even that  arrangement was not satisfactory.    

Albert Tagua,  a close family friend said on Facebook:  “The father desperately tried to remit some money into his wife’s  account but  due to the long weekend and long cue at the banks, the transaction went through after lunch.”

Pacific International Hospital, Port Moresby

         By then young Kua’s condition had worsened.  He was coughing blood but still wasn’t enough to convince PIH staff that the boy desperately needed help. Kua was then  rushed to Port Moresby General  Hospital and died in the afternoon.

         Just three days earlier, on new year’s eve,  Philomena Eileen Ore,  nearly lost her three week-old baby at the PIH when she too was refused treatment.  It wasn’t because she didn’t have the money.  She simply  couldn’t pay  her daughter’s bill upfront using the hospital’s EFTPOS due to a systems failure.  

         “I had no cash and I was going to use the card but the system was down,” she said. 

         “Even though I gave them assurances that my family would go to the ATM and return with the cash while my baby was  attended to, the [the staff] couldn’t be bothered.”

         There are numerous cases that have come to the fore in the last three years.  In 2010, the  PNG exposed blog saw more than 50 responses  to article by  a Dr. Joshita Amai,  which highlighted cases where patients had not been treated fairly. 

One of the commentators posted on the blog saying:  “I saw a patient die there one afternoon… they wouldn’t resuscitate the patient because he needed to pay  a K500.00 kina deposit first. The relatives… brought back the money to no avail. The poor man passed away while they went to get money...”

In a scathing but rather obvious revelation,  Dr. Amai said  the policy of the hospital is to make   as much profits as possible and that they operate  as  a 24 hour hospital

“Twenty-four-hour service demands a significant number  of medical doctors and nurses.” 

Those who work at the hospital have also revealed that PIH  doctors are sometimes asked not to announce the deaths of intensive care unit (ICU) patients for a few days so the hospital can make  significant profits  of K6000 a night from keeping that dead body.

Dr. Amai went further to say that because PIH is a hospital with bad reputation, not many doctors want to work there. She  also revealed that the management  recruits  foreign  doctors who are under-qualified or unable to practice in their countries of origin for one reason  or another.