All National Referral Hospital (NRH) vehicle fleet in Honiara should have protective steel mesh security grills around them just like some of the police vehicles.
The suggestion was made following the stoning incident over the weekend of a land-cruiser owned by the Emergency Department (ED) at NRH.
The incident occurred at the FFA Road Junction West Kola’a Ridge, Central Honiara early Sunday morning between 1am-2am.
The vehicle was dropping off doctors and nurses after their 11pm shift when an unknown person deliberately threw a stone at the landcruiser.
The stone hit the bonnet before it bounced on to hit the windscreen. As a result the front windscreen damaged.
Fortunately, the stone did not went through the glass windscreen.
The matter was reported to Naha police and is now under investigation.
An ED senior officer said, the latest incident should be a wake up call for the government through the Ministry of Health to ensure all hospital vehicles are being protected by fixing nets (mesh wire grills) around the landcruisers and buses.
ED was gifted with the landcruiser thanks to the Ministry of Infrastructure Department (MID) in March this year to ease the transportation challenging facing its staff.
The latest incident had resulted in the landcruiser being garaged as the department finds way to have the windscreen fixed.
Because of the situation a dedicated vehicle have been temporarily issued to the emergency department by the hospital management until their landcruiser is repaired.
Its not the first time such stoning incident happened to hospital vehicles.
Because of this the medical officer said, its sad that medical staff who are working to save lives are being targeted.
“Its important that consideration must be made by authorities to ensure hospital vehicles are safeguarded at all cost.
“If some of the police vehicles are being protected with the steel nets placed around the vehicle, why not protect our hospital vehicles.
“Even if it costs money to do this, the lives of our doctors and nurses are more important,” the officer concluded.
Each day and night, hospital vehicles normally move around Honiara to pick-up and drop-off medical staff.
Lead Photo caption: The broken wind screen of the ED Landcruiser.
