Beds for new Navosa Hospital were bought by govt and were initially deployed to the new Ba Hospital – Ministry of Health

The Ministry of Health has clarified the new beds at the newly opened Navosa Sub-Divisional Hospital were bought by government and initially deployed to the new Ba Hospital, in anticipation of the potential massive increase in admission as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic early in 2020.

The Ministry says having achieved COVID-contained status and alleviating the need for stand-by inpatient beds at Ba Hospital, the Ministry decided to deploy these new beds for immediate use at the new Navosa Sub-Divisional Hospital, where they will be permanently inventoried.

It says this is not an unusual action, and the Ministry has employed this strategy in the past and will continue to do so in the future, to utilise it's available resources to their maximum potential in order to meet existing and new service needs.

The Ministry currently expects to receive an order in the next few weeks of 914 new hospital beds valued at more than $3.2million.

Responding to recent statements posted on the social media, the Ministry of Health says the Permanent Secretary, Dr. James Fong had stated that the Ministry has planned and is now implementing, over the next 3 months, a phased establishment of services at the new hospital to ensure that the hospital builds upon its service scope, processes and ability to handle a growing caseload.

A patient at the Navosa Hospital. [image: Fijian Govt.] 

He says the Ministry has been approved $2.6 million worth of biomedical equipment for the Navosa Hospital and the new state-of-the-art digital portable x-ray machine and workstation is one of the twenty-two new digital x-ray machines that were recently distributed across the country.

He says the new dental chair and laboratory blood test machine have also been installed and commissioned for permanent use at the hospital.

Dr. Fong says additional biomedical equipment is expected to arrive in order to complete the approved list of equipment for the hospital.

The Ministry says equipment in the operating theatre will be further enhanced to facilitate the mobile and fixed surgical capabilities planned for the hospital.

He says it is also anticipated that as the health services swing into full motion over the next three months, the equipment list will require further modification in order to meet the emerging or new health care service needs that may be identified.