Esteemed Dr Sam Yockopua will quit if health boss not sacked
10 August 2019
NEWS DESK | FM100 / PNG Today
PORT MORESBY – One of Papua New Guinea’s most senior doctors is ready to resign from his job if the government and health department do not respond to a petition to sack the health secretary.
The chief emergency physician at Port Moresby General Hospital and secretary of the National Doctors Association, Dr Sam Yockopua, said he will be the first doctor to resign.
Dr Yockopua said doctors have had enough of ignorance from the senior executive management in the health department who have failed to address PNG’s deteriorating health system and services.
“I will be the first highly trained medical specialist to resign if they won’t respond to our petition to remove the Health Secretary within a seven days ultimatum starting next Tuesday,” he said.
Dr Yockopua the petition for the immediate removal of the health secretary as well as other senior executive managers in the health sector on Monday at 4:30pm.
The frustrated doctor announced his intention following updates from his team that Port Moresby General Hospitals and other public hospitals around the country had no iodine, no crepe bandages, no orthopaedic padding, no gauze bandages and no other medicines.
He said this information came from his team on the ground trying to save lives under painstaking difficult conditions.
Dr Yockopua called on the government to sack the health secretary who he said ‘does not know his job’.
I see that the Secretary for Health declared on Friday that all ...."stagnant managers"....would be replaced. I can tell him exactly where to begin - in the mirror.
Posted by: Will Self | 11 August 2019 at 09:30 AM