Papua and New Guinea medical journal
-
The dramatic events following closed chest injury are often unpredictable and may be fatal. Chest injury is one of the commonest causes of road traffic accident deaths in Papua New Guinea. Flail chest is an important complication of closed chest injury which has not been described previously in the locally published literature. Flail chest, its complications and management are discussed with an illustrative case history.
-
In Papua New Guinea (PNG) primary health care in rural areas is principally provided by aid post orderlies (APO's). During 1979-80, all 110 aid posts in Enga Province were visited; 20% were found to be unstaffed. All APO's were from the province and about 50% were providing satisfactory service. ⋯ Aid posts usually had sufficient supplies of basic drugs. Despite the presence of a good APO training school in Enga, the standard of graduates was very variable and some of the best APO's in the province had minimal training over 30 years previously. Tribal warfare in Enga continues to be a threat to the delivery of primary health care.
-
Because puerperal sepsis is the second most common cause of maternal death in Papua New Guinea some aspects of its aetiology and prevention have been investigated. 91% of 125 women with puerperal fever were found to have post-partum uterine infection. The anaerobes Bacteroides and Peptostreptococcus singly or together, were the commonest causes, while Streptococcus pyogenes was the predominant aerobic species. ⋯ An analysis of the records of all patients was made to determine the redisposing factors associated with puerperal fever; only operative delivery was found to be significant, especially when it followed prolonged labour. Metronidazole given to 72 women before induction of labour was associated with puerperal fever in 4%, compared with 21% in matched controls.