The Fiji National Kidney Centre in Nadera, Suva is now operating normally after urgent repairs were carried out on its Reverse Osmosis machines.
To address the breakdown, the Ministry of Health and Medical Services had to urgently activate a contingency support plan to fly in Fresenius Company Director for Water Solutions Asia-Pacific Mr Peter Eldridge from New Zealand on Tuesday to repair the machines.
The opportunity was also taken to train 7 local biomedical technicians (6 in public sector and one in the private sector) on the repair and maintenance of the reverse osmosis machines.
All 7 technicians have successfully completed the training and have been licensed to provide the needed backup.
Please also note that the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital is working again following repairs done to the air-condition system needed to ensure the optimal functioning of the MRI machine.
Over the weekend, the machine began operations.
CWMH's Medical Imaging Technologies (MIT) supervisor Mereoni Gaunavinaka said the machine will now operate normal during weekdays while it will only serve emergency cases in the weekends.
At present that the mortuary at the Vunisea Hospital in Kadavu has ceased operations due to mechanical breakdowns.
As a result of the mechanical defect, members of the public have been advised to bury their loved ones as soon as possible and a burial support team have been activated in the medical area to help in coordinating any escalated burial needs.
In cases of suspected foul play the body of the deceased is handled by police who will then send bodies to Suva for postmortem.
Since the mechanical breakdown occurred, there has been no reports of suspected foul play on deceased received at the hospital.
The ministry assures members of the public that the facility should be back in operations by Friday next week.
One of the biggest difficulty in sustaining our post covid health recovery program relates to difficulties faced with the adverse impact of impaired supply chains on the supply of equipment and equipment parts the related maintenance programs.
As such teething problems are anticipated as the ministry attempts to re-establish normal operations.
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