Flying Doctors continue serving rural communities despite challenges

THE Zambia Flying Doctor Service (ZFDS) Mufumbwe Outreach team on Sunday suffered a minor setback after it failed to cross Musonwejyi Rivers on its way to Musonwejyi Rural Health Centre because of the impassable or bad state of the bridge which risked the lives of both the team members and the vehicle.

The Mufumbwe outreach team which is led by Team led Mukuka Nkole has so far managed to attend to 584 patients from the three rural health centers, namely Kamizekenzeke, Mishima and Kabanda before suffering a setback in Musonwejyi where the team failed to cross the stream because of the impassable or bad state of the bridge.

After failing to cross the Musonwejyi River, the team decided to retreat and camp at Kabipupu where those who were supposed to be seen at Musonwejyi rural health centre were encouraged to walk and receive medical and health services.

Dr Mukuka said the team had been performing well in terms of numbers but could have performed much better if there was proper publicity.

Dr Nkole said, at Mushima, the outreach team attended to 201, out of which 45 were eye problems, 46 were dental problems and 110 were general problems, while at Kabanda rural health, the team recorded 180 patients, out of which 41 were eye problems, 51 general problems.

On the first day of the outreach at Kamizekenzeke, the team attended to 197 patients and successfully set the stage for providing quality health services in far flung and hard to reach areas of Mufumbwe district of the North Western province which include kamizekenzeke, Kabanda, Mushima, Musonwezhyi, Kaliupu, Nyansonso and Kashima

Dr Nkole said his team was in the district to offer quality and specialized health services to remote rural areas where the population was not accessing quality services and in most cases, they were traveling long distances to access quality health services.