Resettlement areas need health care facilities: Zima

02 Nov, 2014 - 01:11 0 Views

The Sunday News

THE Zimbabwe Medical Association (Zima) has called on Government to intervene and ensure that resettlement areas throughout the country have healthcare facilities, as patients were travelling long distances to access services.
Zima national vice president Dr Emmanuel Shana revealed this on the sidelines of a social responsibility programme at Cyrene Mission outside Bulawayo which was attended by medical professionals from both the public and private sector last week.

“Resettlement areas like these ones need health facilities established because they are relatively new areas and people are forced to travel long distances to access care which is not ideal,” said Dr Shana.

He said people living in resettlement areas such as the one around Cyrene Mission were forced to travel all the way to Bulawayo to seek medical help as they were far from any health facility. He said access to healthcare facilities was a serious challenge and pleaded with Government to ensure that clinics were established for these rural communities.

“If Government through the Ministry of Health and Child Care helps these communities to construct health facilities their lives will surely be improved,” he said.

Dr Shana said the shortage of healthcare facilities was almost uniform across the country in the new resettlement areas and construction of the facilities was an urgent matter.

The social responsibility programme by Zima is an ongoing process whereby doctors from both private and public institutions identify areas where disadvantaged communities need outreach and spend a day treating people for free.

“We identify communities especially from disadvantaged areas and we come and treat the people for free and we also give them drugs. We consult and also do surgeries if need be but those that require further treatment that we cannot do on site we refer to the major hospitals at no cost still,” said Dr Shana.

At Cyrene Mission, a team of 35 medical experts including gynaecologists, dentists, paediatricians, obstetricians, dermatologists, physicians, physiotherapists and surgeons came to assist the community. The Zima national vice president said they wanted to instill a spirit of volunteerism within the medical practitioners as Government alone could not cope with the medical needs of Zimbabweans.

“We have doctors from the private and public sector who are giving up their time to be with the communities and we want to instill this spirit of volunteerism so that  Government’s efforts are complemented as it is overwhelmed already,” he said.

Dr Henry Kuzanga, the secretary general for Matabeleland Zima branch, said the social responsibility offered the communities a chance to have almost all their healthcare needs taken care of under one roof.

“We have a supermarket kind of approach to this where people can visit a variety of specialists at one place unlike having to go elsewhere for treatment. It helps the community which is largely struggling to get assistance for no cost at one stop,” he said.

Dr Kuzanga said they aimed to have the programmes regularly for continuity purposes as seeing the patients twice per year was not adequate.
He pleaded with the corporate world to assist the volunteers by providing resources such as fuel and food for the doctors when they are doing carrying out outreach  work.

Mr Lungile Mathe from West Acre, who had a tooth extraction at the site, said he was happy that the medical practitioners had visited the community and treated them at no cost as they were living in a new farming community where not much production is going on as yet.

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