Chief appeals for expansion to Lenakel Hospital

Chief Tom Kaliwak, the primary landowner of the site on which Lenakel Hospital on Tanna is located, has called on the Government for expansion to the hospital to make it bigger so it can upgrade the level of its services.

In addition, he said he was ready to provide more land to the hospital to allow for the development to take place.

In his welcome speech to the Minister of Health, Jerome Ludvaune, when he visited the hospital last Friday, Chief Kaliwak said Lenakel Hospital needed to be made bigger because the facility was now getting too small as a result of population increase.

“The population of Tanna and Tafea on the whole is increasing rapidly with babies born every day at Lenakel hospital.

“Hence, we need to expand the hospital to house more equipment and facilities including new wards for inpatients,” he added.

The chief appealed to the Minister to see that resources are available at Lenakel Hospital so surgical operations can be done on site. Now all cases for operations are referred to Port Vila Central Hospital where they are done due to lack of available resources at the hospital.

“It is difficult for families when patients must go to Vila for operations because they must pay their own return fare and it is especially difficult when deaths happen and bodies have to be repatriated due to financial and logistical burdens,” Chief Kaliwak continued.

“Operations must be done at Lenakel Hospital, the hospital must have x-ray and other equipment to allow for this to be possible and Lenakel Hospital must have its own doctor,” he added.

George Iapson, the First Political Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister and MP for Tanna, Joe Natuman, added that a lot of people from Tanna go on seasonal work in New Zealand or Australia and they have to come to Port Vila to prepare their documents including passport and this was always costly. He said any extension to the services of the hospital would greatly assist these people through reduced financial and time costs.

The Minister of Health expressed his appreciation to the chief for his willingness to give more land to the hospital for such an idea and he promised to start by sending a resident doctor to the hospital in early 2017.

The last resident doctor, Dr. Robert Vocor, who spent the whole of last year at Lenakel is reported to have left in mid-December to take up a position at the Northern District Hospital in Luganville on his home-island of Santo, in 2017.