The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
COVID-19 caught Zimbabwe and the rest of the world unaware and although the country was not ready to deal with a disaster of its magnitude, interventions by partners like Sakunda Holdings have breathed life into the health sector resulting in significant changes taking place.
On Friday, President Mnangagwa commissioned a US$3.5 million Covid-19 Isolation and Treatment Centre at the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) which was done by Government in partnership with the Sakunda Group and the Bulawayo Orthopedic Centre in partnership with the Zimbabwe Orthopedic Trust.
President Mnangagwa said his Government was indebted to the support the nation received from the private sector following the breakout of the Covid-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe and commended the Sakunda Group for complementing efforts towards the establishment of the UBH isolation and treatment facility.
“The kind gesture and an act of good corporate citizenship is worth emulating. I thus invite other private sector entities to continue to utilise the health sector coordinated framework, as we build sustainable institutions and systems for the post Covid-19 era,” he said after touring the centre.
In an interview with Sunday News after the commissioning of the two projects, Sakunda Holdings chief operating officer Mr Mberikwazvo Chitambo said they have also approached the Ministry of Health and Child Care to replicate the UBH refurbished isolation centre at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals in Harare. He said the group was committed to fighting the Covid-19 scourge and its interests started back in 2020.
“We at Sakunda first noticed that we were under the scourge of Covid-19 as early as February-March 2020, we decided that we were going to do something about it. In May last year we imported 30 tonnes of equipment and materials to assist the Government to combat Covid-19. We donated that material which included gloves, masks, face visor, spray booths, and other Personal Protective Equipment. That is where it all began. When we were done, we asked ourselves if we were to stop there at 30 tonnes, we then resolved that we were going to try a little bit more, we were going to buy a hospital in Harare,” he said.
After the identification of the hospital was done, Sakunda further equipped the institution.
“We equipped it with beds, laboratory equipment, pharmacy, theaters, recovery rooms and donated it to the nation.
From the time the hospital was commissioned, to date no one that passes through pays a dime, they do not pay for their medicine, or their stay there or consultations with doctors. We pay. We have been doing it for the past nine months,” he said.
Mr Chitambo said the first institution was opened in Mount Pleasant in Harare and they decided to go further nearer to the people and approached the Government through the Ministry of Health and Child Care to inform them about the plight of Bulawayo in regards to Covid-19.
“The Government said they were going to renovate a unit at UBH to have a stand-alone Covid-19 unit. We then proposed that if the Government renovated the ward, we would equip it fully as Sakunda and we did just that. We signed an MOU and have donated the unit I was handing over to the President. To equip alone as Sakunda Group, we set aside US$3.5 million for UBH and we are going to put in a Renal Unit there too. Kidney disease has become an issue in our land affecting us a lot,” he said.
Sakunda Group has also extended the same invitation to Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals in Harare which is set to benefit from a Covid-19 unit.
“I have gone on to engage the Ministry again and I informed them that I want to give another Covid-19 unit, in Harare at Parirenyatwa Hospital where we will take over two wards, CI and C2 and replicate what has been done at UBH. We will give the nation another Covid-19 hospital unit, all these are free of charge just like the Arundel one in Harare. As Sakunda, we will meet the running costs for free for the next 12 months at UBH and Parirenyatwa Hospitals for all Covid-19 patients.”
Mr Chitambo said the group has spent US$20 million in total and expect in the next 12 months for both capital or expenditure, to channel another US$10 million towards Covid-19.
“This time next year, I expect that the Sakunda Group will have channeled US$30 million on our brothers and sisters,” he assured.
He stressed the need for corporates and other businesses to give back to the communities that make them.
“I was pleased to hear Dr Dzvanga the UBH acting chief executive officer saying that Bulawayo was already ahead in terms of implementation of projects. We at Sakunda Group believe that everybody must give back to the environment in which we work. I think one way or the other the Government has enabled the people to build businesses they call theirs today because they have been enabled.
“The environment which enabled them, they must look after. If it were possible, we would remind each other that it is befitting to engage in some corporate social responsibility and topical ones. If the epidemic is Covid-19, we channel resources to Covid, if its Hepatitis, we engage it,” he stressed.
“One would want to see corporates doing this, because that is what we see corporates doing world over. There are much bigger corporates than my group of companies that are giving back.”-@NyembeziMu
