Walking into Paradise Private Hospital may seem like stepping into a luxurious five-star hotel built by some fancy contractor from overseas but it’s the gifted hands of Thomas Tomowaina the hospital craftsman. Tomowaina, 52, from beautiful good-enough Island in the Milyn Bay province joined the hospital in 2010 as joinery and cabinet makers..
Mr Tomowaina was one of those unique crafts man of all time who learnt skills through working alongside expatriates without going through the proper education system. Thomas Left his Island home, Good-Enough and searched for better education in Port Moresby in 1990. Although city life was tough, he got himself into Badili Vocational School in 1992.
After a year, Thomas find life harder than he imagine with no one to support him for bus fares to and from school and he decided to left school and look for job to sustain him. He secured a training job with a construction company which was operated by an expatriate. “ My focus this time is to learn how to do designs and bring the designs into reality.
“For nine(9) years I’ve been watching how my boss an expatriate designs and build things and I learnt some skills from him. In 2001, the company closed its business and Thomas stayed home and searched for other jobs. He then got another job in 2002 with Cloudy Bay Sustainable Forestry Ltd which he worked for about 8 years.
“My journey with Paradise began in 2010 when one of my friends told me that the hospital is looking for joinery and cabinet makers and I came and joined them. “First time I joined the hospital most of its sections are run down with no proper counters, walls, sinks and other needed structures. Thomas started its maintenance starting with replacing walls and then building counters, tables and all the necessary structure the hospital needs bring to reality.
“It was just me back then doing maintenance and when hospital changes ownership there’s other staffs being recruited to work under “I grew to be a talented Craftsperson in the hospital, building many custom projects that hospital may have spent more on it. This is Thomas 14 years working for the hospital as the Maintenance Supervisor looking after 12 staffs. In celebrating hospital 65th anniversary, Thomas said Paradise had given him more than he deserved taking care of him and his family and he will continue to give his best to make the hospital look stunning and standardized.
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