The Sunday News
BULAWAYO City Council clinics and the Thorngrove Infectious Diseases Hospital are operating below capacity with just 61 percent of its staffing complement available, Sunday News has learnt.
The council senior public relations officer, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu, confirmed this development.
“Council clinics and Thorngrove hospital are operating with 216 Registered General Nurses (61 percent) out of an authorised establishment of 354 nurses,” she said.
Mrs Mpofu said this had had an adverse impact on service delivery in that the council was forced to lease out some of its clinics as it was not in a position to run them.
“We had to lease out Lobengula Clinic to a private player and we have not been able to open Mahatshula Clinic due to equipment and staff shortages. Pumula South and Tshabalala clinics have also been partly leased out to external parties,” she said.
The clinic in Mahatshula has been lying idle since 2000, when council cancelled the initial lease.
Bulawayo Mayor Clr Martin Moyo is on record saying they were going to lease out other clinics that they were failing to operate.
“What we are saying is that we cannot just allow a facility to crumble because we want to hold on to it. If we have any other health facilities which are lying idle we will surely lease them out to the private sector,” said the Mayor.
Clr Moyo said the reason the council took the tender route was that they wanted the best possible individual or organisation to operate the facilities that they have so as to ensure quality health delivery for residents in those areas.
Mrs Mpofu said affected communities were walking long distances to the nearest health facilities available and this in turn congested the operational clinics.
“Long queues have become the order of the day with patients having to wait long hours to be attended to. The staff members also suffer from burn out as they forego their tea and lunch breaks in extreme cases, while procedures ordinarily carried out by three nurses at a health facility for example consultation, dispensing and report writing are done by a single nurse in most of Council’s health facilities,” she added.
The public relations officer said the city council was continuously lobbying central Government to remit grants to the local authorities in accordance with the Public Health Financing agreement where 50 percent of the costs incurred for health delivery will be refunded by the Government.
Residents in areas that have limited access to the health facilities say it is a violation of the Constitution that says in Section 76 that every citizen of Zimbabwe has the right to health care.
The Bulawayo city council has 21 clinics that are largely in high density residential areas.
Residents of Magwegwe and Cowdray Park are now living in fear that Luveve Clinic may be overwhelmed by large numbers of patients seeking treatment.
The clinic is bound to be affected by long queues, slow service, medication running out and health personnel getting exhausted, thus becoming prone to errors.
The council is, however, being encouraged to equip clinics to ensure that they meet modern standards for health facilities.
