Unvaccinated doctor dies of Covid
28 September 2021
LEANNE JORARI
| The Guardian
PORT MORESBY - Tributes have poured in for a doctor in Papua New Guinea’s Western Province who died last week, in the country’s first death of a healthcare worker from Covid-19 confirmed by the government.
Dr Naomi Kori Pomat, 60, the director for curative health services at the Western Provincial Health Authority, was medevaced to Port Moresby after contracting the virus and died on 19 September.
Her son, Dr David Pomat, told the Guardian: “Dr Naomi Pomat was my mother and we loved her very dearly … a wonderful, loving, humble and selfless woman who literally gave her life to serving her people despite all odds.”
Well wishes have poured in over social media, with friends and family who knew her remembering her life and her dedication to the people of Western Province.
The Western Province Health Authority said she was the first female doctor from the province and the first female specialist medical officer in the province, working as a paediatrician.
Later she became the director of the Curative Health Service to the Western Province Health Authority.
“She set the standard, and a challenge that will motivate the young people,” the Authority wrote in its announcement of her death on Facebook.
“It’s a huge vacuum late Dr N Pomat left. In the PNG medical [fraternity] it’s a great loss. Thank you for serving PNG and Western Province with distinction.”
In another tribute, parents of a young child Dr Pomat helped care for wrote: “In some of the most trying months of our lives, she was there offering guidance and encouragement.
“She was soft spoken and gentle, yet unmoveable in her determination to honour God and to love people. The world was a better place with her in it.”
Acting prime minister Soroi Eoe said Dr Pomat was unvaccinated and urged all medical practitioners get vaccinated to protect themselves.
It is believed that other health workers from PNG have died from Covid-19, but this is the first death of a doctor that the government has announced it believes has been due to the virus.
So, now is the time of "downhill" in the Highlands? That monumental highway building work in 1950s & 1960s was easy street compared to the way of walking from Covid-19.
See: https://www.thenational.com.pg/killer-delta/
Posted by: Lindsay F Bond | 11 October 2021 at 05:17 PM
Such is understatement. Oh, let it be anything other than "unnecessary".
What sorrow is in that word, an utterance of anguish, not as a question.
Yet compare that with word "sadly", in Australia at least of recent years and of Covid particularly.
There seems to have arisen a ritual of reporting that with report of a death comes the word "sadly".
This comment is not to trivialize those really ghastly events in Western Province. Although Stoicism has been suggested in some comments about the creep of Covid among people of Papua New Guinea, rigour ought be more than 'watching', it ought be of working for no less than full health of all citizens and visitors. The very lives of those health workers lost to Covid ought be commemorated for their exemplary endeavours and to bring actionable awareness to the population at large.
Posted by: Lindsay F Bond | 28 September 2021 at 04:44 PM
Sorry to hear of this doctor's death. My condolences to the Pomat family. A professional person leaves the nation and it will take a while to replace her.
My cousin, also a professional with the OKTedi Mine also died 3 weeks back, Before he left for Tabubil, I met him at the Airport and we yarned for a while before he left for his 10 days quarantine at a hotel in Port Moresby. I asked him if he was vaccinated. He said no and I insisted he should get vaxxed. (I had my two shots) He says he is hearing a lot of negative stories and will wait a little while. Unfortunately he dies a healthy man - Covid 19 Delta got him.
The death was unnecessary. The workplace had the ability and the crux to demand that all its employees have vaccination before going to work. Instead it dillydallied with quarantine and test only and Covid 19 delta crept under the fence to get in at Tabubil. They still have not shut down and or demanded compulsory vaxx for anyone employed at the mine site.
Papua New Guinea has invested a lot in the education on its educated professionals. And they are just a few compared with the population. The formal and informal equation is about 10/90 % of the population. If any sickness and death falls on any of these 10 percent professionals, the country losses out big time on the knowledge and skills of these educated population. It is a huge price to pay. The government should mandate and make it compulsory that all professionals should be vaccinated. When these professionals are safe, they can then take care of the nation and its people.
The rest of the population are waiting for disaster to happen and this is on the watch of the anti vaxxers and with the assistance of many churches and pastors are giving alternate views and remedies. They should desist.
8 million people is not a big number. Every person that dies means one less person and we need people to populate this nation and if they are professionals the more better we strive to keep them alive and take the best out of them before they pass on in old age.
Posted by: AG Satori | 28 September 2021 at 12:41 PM