The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
THE recently opened Ekusileni Hospital will only be admitting mild Covid-19 patients without comorbidity conditions, it has been learnt.
The hospital admitted its first two patients on Tuesday, after the government designated it as a national Covid-19 isolation centre.
According to an internal memorandum from the hospitals acting chief executive officer, Dr Absalom Dube, the hospital has set criteria for anyone to be admitted into the institution.
“Ekusileni admission criteria for mild Covid-19 cases include patients presenting signs and symptoms with saturation above 80 percent on free air, patient requiring less than 10 litres of oxygen, saturation above 80 percent on oxygen therapy and no comorbidity conditions,” reads the memo.
Further Covid-19 result slip with a positive result and should also have referral letter before admission. Comorbidity is the presence of one or more additional conditions often co-occurring with a primary condition.
Ekusileni was closed more than 15 years ago when its equipment was declared obsolete. The hospital, a brainchild of the late Vice-President Dr Joshua Nkomo, has experienced a number of false starts and numerous efforts to reopen it have failed.
Its premises are owned by the National Social Security Authority (Nssa) and it was opened in 2000 before it closed in 2001.
Last year in April, there was hope that the institution would be re-opened after the Government identified the centre as one of the institutions that was earmarked to house cases of the Covid-19 in the city.
