ANGAU Memorial Hospital is a major hospital in

Lae Lae () is the capital of Morobe Province and is the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea. It is located near the delta of the Markham River and at the start of the Highlands Highway, which is the main land transport corridor between the Highl ...

, Papua New Guinea. Named after an Australian Army unit that was responsible for the civil administration of the

Territory of Papua The Territory of Papua comprised the southeastern quarter of the island of New Guinea from 1883 to 1975. In 1883, the Government of Queensland annexed this territory for the British Empire. The United Kingdom Government refused to ratify the a ...

and the Mandated

Territory of New Guinea The Territory of New Guinea was an Australian-administered United Nations trust territory on the island of New Guinea from 1914 until 1975. In 1949, the Territory and the Territory of Papua were established in an administrative union by the na ...

, the hospital provides in-patient and specialist medical services to people in the

Sepik The Sepik () is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun (formerly West Se ...

Madang Madang (old German name: ''Friedrich-Wilhelmshafen'') is the capital of Madang Province and is a town with a population of 27,420 (in 2005) on the north coast of Papua New Guinea. It was first settled by the Germans in the 19th century. Histo ...

and Morobe provinces. In 2013–14, the Australian government announced that it would contribute to the hospital's redevelopment as part of a deal with the PNG government relating to the resettlement of asylum seekers.

Nomenclature

ANGAU stands for the

Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit The Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) was a civil administration of Territory of Papua and the Mandated Territory of New Guinea formed on 21 March 1942 during World War II. The civil administration of both Papua and the Mand ...

, which was an

Australian Army The Australian Army is the principal land warfare force of Australia, a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Army (CA), wh ...

unit that was formed on 21 March 1942 during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

and was responsible for the civil administration of the

and the Mandated

. Following Japan's entry in the war, the civil administration of both Papua and the Mandated Territory of New Guinea was taken over by an Australian Army military government and came under the control of ANGAU from February 1942 until the end of World War II.

History

During World War II, the 2/7 Australian General Hospital (2/7 AGH) was established at Lae to provide medical services to Allied military forces. The military base hospital was described in July 1945 in an article in ''The Mail'', as a 1,200-bed base hospital with "many attractive gardens which are gay with native plants and shrubs". After the war, there were plans to construct a new hospital in the area to meet the medical needs of the local population, but these were initially met with opposition by the Lae Advisory Council, as reported in the ''Queensland Times'' in July 1951: "The Lae Advisory Council has recommended that the new European and native hospitals be retained as separate entities. Separate wards be used for Europeans and Asiatics or mixed bloods." Nevertheless, the plans went ahead and in 1963, a report to the United Nations detailed an increase in the works budget for the administration of the Territory of New Guinea to £680,756, which included the construction of the ANGAU Memorial Hospital as a replacement to the wartime Lae base hospital. The ANGAU Memorial Hospital was officially opened on 17 April with accommodation for 412 in-patients and to provide specialist services to 620,000 people of the

and Morobe provinces and cost £621,000.

Medical research

A retrospective study was carried out on

Ewing's sarcoma Ewing sarcoma is a type of cancer that forms in bone or soft tissue. Symptoms may include swelling and pain at the site of the tumor, fever, and a bone fracture. The most common areas where it begins are the legs, pelvis, and chest wall. In about ...

between 1973 and 1987 at the Cancer Treatment Centre of the hospital.

Redevelopment

In September 2013, it was reported that the hospital had deteriorated over the last 20 years and that its buildings had become infested with termites. The renovation of the hospital is a core condition of the asylum-seeker deal between Australia and PNG made on 19 July 2013. ANGAU has only 12 of the 32 specialists it needs, and just 55 per cent of its 729 total staff. In February 2014, the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, stated: "The Australian Government has committed to redevelop the ANGAU Hospital. The original hospital is now 50 years old. It was built in 1964 and is run down, it has been attacked by termites over time, there is asbestos in the building, so we need to work very hard to lift the standards to something that is world class." Over K300 million has been invested in the redevelopment of Angau, including the master plan and 50 percent of the capital cost of renovation works. It will take two years to plan and design the new Angau hospital, while the major construction work will commence in 2016–17.

Alumni

* 1964: James William McKay, MBBS, DTM&H, DPH, Dip Ed, FRACGP (Medical Superintendent) * 1952–72: Arthur Kenneth (Ken) Jones MBE (Manager of the Artificial Limb Clinic)

References

{{reflist

External links

Photos of 2/7 Australian General Hospital, 1945
Lae Australia–Papua New Guinea relations History of Papua New Guinea Territory of Papua Territory of New Guinea Papua New Guinea in World War II Military units and formations established in 1942 Military units and formations disestablished in 1946 1942 in Papua New Guinea 1948 in Papua New Guinea