Let’s Build a Fairer Healthier World for Everyone – World Health Day 2021

April 7 marks the celebration of World Health Day which each year brings to light important health issues such as mental health, maternal and child care, and climate change.

At the Wabag hospital site in the PNG rainforests of Enga, sustainable health care is about bringing medical treatment within range of the population, offering services and facilities that meet a broad range of patient needs whilst treating resultant hospital wastewater to a standard that will protect villagers and the environment downstream of the intensive medical facility.

Paul Cobbin, Hydroflux Epco’s General Manager of Solutions, has been working with various stakeholders including the Enga Provincial Government Engineer since 2013 to assist with the development of the Wabag hospital project.

“Many of us take health care for granted. Why wouldn’t you when there is a clinic in every local shopping centre, but before the Wabag facility, Engan patients had to drive up to five hours to the neighboring province for treatment” Mr Cobbin says, comparing Australian health care with the Engan experience.

At an altitude of 2000 meters, in a province with an area of 11,704km2, the Wabag hospital is the only hospital at the end of the 700-kilometer highlands highway in a region susceptible to earthquakes and landslides. Self-sustainability is critical when the only supply route gets cut regularly for days and sometimes weeks.

To be self-sustainable, the campus built by GDFC PNG Ltd has operating theatres, day patient clinics, wards for extended stays, commercial kitchen facilities and laundry plus a mortuary and staff accommodation in villas within the security of the vast mountainside site. As well as hospital facilities, the site has its own natural water source and a Hydroflux sewage treatment plant (STP) for processing of sewage, which you can read more about here.

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