Gwanda hospital seeks accommodation crisis redress
GWANDA Provincial Hospital has urged Government to address accommodation challenges faced by the institution’s staff members as it was affecting service delivery.
In an interview, the hospital’s medical superintendent, Dr Pugy Chimberengwa, said there is also a need for the hospital to be expanded as it could not cater for the targeted population. He said the institution was allocated 27 hectares of land for construction of a provincial hospital with a large capacity but the project was being delayed by financial challenges.
“We have a challenge of accommodation due to limited space and as a result most of our staff members are located outside the hospital premises.
“We have close to 250 nurses and only 20 are accommodated within the institution.
“We also have critical staff members that need to be accommodated within the hospital such anaesthetics, doctors and theatre nurses. It’s difficult for us to improve our response rate if they have to be called in from outside to attend to emergencies. Therefore we appeal to Government to assist us in alleviating accommodation challenges,” he said.
Dr Chimberengwa said the hospital’s staff establishment was inadequate for a provincial hospital. He said they had however, managed to make significant improvements despite prevailing challenges.“We have managed to reduce our debt from $2 million to $600 000 over the past three years and we have also tried to improve on our supply of medicine. The hospital is now solar powered and we have also managed to drill three boreholes in order to address water challenges.
“We are also in the process of setting up a dialysis unit which is now 95 percent complete. Once it’s complete, it will mean that kidney patients will not need to travel to Bulawayo for their dialysis but they will access it locally,” said Dr Chimberengwa.
He said the hospital was also working on improving service delivery through reducing response time by ambulances and they had also put in place mechanisms to improve staff attitudes.
“Our main plea is that we are fully capacitated as an institution so that we can serve our role as a provincial hospital,” he said.
Gwanda Mayor Councillor Knowledge Ndlovu said the hospital had been allocated 27 hectares of land at Makwezi Farm along Old Gwanda Road before 2010 towards constructing a provincial hospital but work had not yet started. — @DubeMatutu