The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
A GANG of gold panners in Esigodini allegedly stormed a clinic in the area and locked up nurses demanding that they be treated for injuries they sustained in a fight with a rival gang.
The Esigodini area has been ravaged by gold wars that have claimed the lives of many people as rival gangs fight over the control of mining claims. In an interview on the sidelines of a Health Services Board tour at Gwanda Provincial Hospital on Thursday last week, Umzingwane acting District Medical Officer Dr Simbarashe Samanyantwe said the incident happened two weeks ago at Esigodini Clinic. He said some workers were no longer feeling safe because of the constant threats of attacks by some gold panners.
“This makes the need for us to have security posts availed at our rural health facilities to assist in times like this. We are having a lot of violent cases recorded in Umzingwane District and because of that we have some individuals that are bringing their violence to rural health centres and some nurses are feeling unsafe.”
In another incident, Dr Samanyantwe said gold panners fought in front of the clinic and one was stabbed in full view of the health staff.
“We receive a lot of murder cases using machetes, knives and axes, so our staff members are now raising concerns over their safety too. As recent as four weeks back at Esigodini we had a case where individuals stabbed each other just three metres from the entrance of the institution so those situations present a security challenge for our staff which is our major worry,” he said.
Dr Samanyantwe said the clashes were mostly linked to gold panning activities in the area, adding that many cases they were attending to were linked to those injured during the gold wars. HSB board member Dr Stanley Mungofa said they were visiting heath facilities in Matabeleland South to have an appreciation of the challenges faced by workers.
“We met the workers and they are asking on a number of issues regarding conditions of service. They are highlighting issues of the environment that they operate under,” he said.
On the issue of under-staffing, he said Government is still facing challenges in adding more staff at a time when the economy is not performing well.
“Where we employ more people we have to be prepared to pay more and with the current situation in the country there are austerity measures that have been proposed by the Finance Ministry until 2019. We wait until the situation normalises.
However, that does not mean we are ignoring their needs. There is a workload indicator study that we are having in all hospitals so that we determine what is needed looking at growth in the population. We are impressed that at Gwanda Hospital, they have good infrastructure and they are even bringing in things that were not there before, like the intensive care unit.”
