The Sunday News
Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
THE Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa, has called on the Government to review its employment and resource allocation policies in order to improve quality of the country’s services and facilities.Dr Parirenyatwa made the clarion call after touring Beitbridge District Hospital last week.
The hospital is a referral centre for a population of 128 000 people and a daily transient population of 10 000. It is also a referral centre for patients from other districts that include Mwenezi and Chiredzi.
A total of 16 rural clinics also feed into the 140-bed hospital, which also caters for victims of road accidents along the two major roads leading to Bulawayo and Harare.
Dr Parirenyatwa said the Government was using an employment policy which was crafted during the colonial era.
“It is worrying that we have an establishment of four doctors at Beitbridge District Hospital where we would need around seven to cope with the task at hand. From what we have seen on the ground, the hospital is overstrained in terms of other operational resources because of its location in one of the busiest ports of entry in the country,” he said.
“It is of paramount importance that we strengthen the quality of services in our health institutions across the country.”
Dr Parirenyatwa said his ministry was in the process of reviewing the quality of service at all health institutions.
He said they will also introduce mobile clinics in rural areas where a number of people were walking long distances of between 20km and 30km to access medical care.
“We need to make use of mobile clinics. We cannot have people travelling for such long distances to seek treatment. Let’s also decentralise services from the referral hospital and have some clinics offering services such as X-rays and deliveries among others,” said Dr Parirenyatwa.
As for Beitbridge, there is a district hospital, a town council clinic and four private clinics to cater for an urban population of 42 218.
Dr Parirenyatwa also called on the business community and political leaders to work together in drilling at least two boreholes to address water shortages facing Beitbridge District Hospital.
Briefing the minister, Beitbridge district medical officer, Dr Takaitei Kanongara, said acute shortage of accommodation was affecting staff deployment.
He said water shortages were now a perennial problem as the Zimbabwe National Water Authority was failing to pump enough water to the hospital.
Dr Kanongara added that they had a challenge in terms of autoclaving services as they were yet to instal two machines because of logistical issues between the Matabeleland South medical directorate and the State Procurement Board.
“At the moment we are taking our equipment to Bulawayo for autoclaving (sterilisation),” he said.
