New Caledonia's Congress will urgently convene a top-level commission to tackle a huge public debt to the main hospital.
Noumea's main hospital Photo: CHT Gaston-Bourret
The Social Protection Fund needs to clear a debt of $US180 million to the hospital by the end of the year.
The Fund is the main source of revenue for the hospital but it stopped its regular scheduled payments a year ago.
The risk is that the hospital won't be able to pay salaries nor clear its own debts with suppliers which are forecast to amount to more than $US40 million by year's end.
The situation's urgency has prompted Congress to call a meeting of a commission which includes the president of the government as well as the head of the Social Protection Fund.