Covid outbreak has reached my hospital in Papua New Guinea. People could soon be dying in the parking lot | Glen Mola

Port Moresby General Hospital is one of the few safe places for women to give birth, but 30% of our workforce has Covid-19 and we may have to shut our doors

At Port Moresby General Hospital, about 20% of women presenting in labour have symptoms of Covid-19. Of these, about one-third (four to five women a day) test positive.

We get the test results back about two to three hours after we take the swabs, so often by the time the woman is delivering her baby it is too late to transfer her to the Covid isolation ward for the birth and staff have attended to her and been exposed to the virus, without being able to don the appropriate level of PPE and practice other precautionary measures to protect themselves.