THE National Referral Hospital (NRH) in Honiara is faced with an acute shortage of wheelchairs, which impacts its services.
The demand for wheelchairs continues to increase as more people are admitted at the hospital.
Most of those in need of wheelchairs are patients with amputated legs, a nurse told Solomon Star last week.
The officer said, this is not a new problem, adding, most of the wheel chairs at the hospital are old and need urgent replacement.
“Its sad to see that some of these wheelchairs are running around with no tyres, but on bare rim,” the nurse said.
The shortage also happened because some even patients took some of these wheelchairs with them home because they do need a wheelchair when discharged.
The nurse added, wheelchairs are handy to move sick patients around.
The officer said so often nurses and doctors are with faced with the challenge of looking for wheelchairs for patients.
“Some of the patients are old and cannot walk alone. They need a wheel chair to move around to access the ablution block or other wards,” the nurse said.
It was revealed due to budget constraints, the hospital could not afford to pay for wheelchairs, which costs around $2000 for one.
However, it was revealed following concerns over the lack of wheelchairs raised by the hospital staff, a businessman assured the hospital that more wheelchairs would be procured.
“If that businessman provides the wheelchairs, then it would ease the burden the hospital is currently facing,” the officer said.
In the past, there were donations of wheelchairs, most of which of are now old and unusable.
Photo caption: One of the wheelchairs being used by patients at NRH. Photo supplied.
