Nhowe Hospital: An oasis in the wilderness

AMID the tsunami that has swept the Ministry of Health and Child Care where the minister was recently sacked, five central hospital bosses fired and about a dozen directors sent on indefinite leave — it can be tempting to dismiss the health sector, public or otherwise, as dead.

With community infections of Covid19, which have spiked to 654, closing in on imported cases that stood at 766 as of Friday, many would be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed by helplessness.

But about 126 kilometres east of Harare lies a health institution whose success is a glimmer of hope, that it is not all doom and gloom in this important sector.

While it is not a Government-funded health institution, Nhowe Mission Hospital’s location and the community it serves, make it stand out.

Nestled in the farming area of Macheke adjacent to Arizona Farm, the 78-bed health institution, also known as Brian Lemons Memorial Hospital, is a shining example, providing a safety net for locals, who would otherwise have to travel long distances for medical attention.

They would either have to journey to Murehwa District Hospital or Marondera Provincial Hospital, several kilometres away.

The hospital, with a catchment area of about 61 000 people, is thus a haven for Macheke and Murehwa folk, who have been accessing its services since 2001.

With Zimbabwe’s health system undergoing one of its worst spells in recent history due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the hospital has transformed itself into a model on how to contain and combat the invisible yet lethal virus.

This writer got first hand appreciation of the institution during a recent visit.

At the main gate, visitors are immediately offered face masks, if they do not have their own, screened through temperature checks and asked to sanitise their hands from an array of available options.

A chat with the hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Jonathan Mundiya revealed the determination the hospital has in combating Covid-19.

“We are on a mission to contain the virus at this hospital and the surrounding community. We do massive screening for both staff and patients at the main gate and anyone with symptoms synonymous with Covid-19 is escorted to the isolation ward where we continue monitoring the condition.

“All our staff have undergone Covid-19 management training and this has gone a long way in the fight against the virus,” he said.

Dr Mundiya, however, said their strength emanates from a vibrant community link, which has seen the hospital getting a ventilator, one of the most sought-after equipment in the management of Covid-19.

“We have a strong community link that has seen us walking tall as one of the hospitals that boast of a ventilator. The ventilator, which some city and central hospitals do not possess, came as a donation from the community. They are sourcing more.

“Besides the ventilator, the community also sourced more than 10 infrared thermometers, three knapsack sprayers for disinfections, face shields and face masks, theatre caps, colour coded bins, bin liners and fuel for use in rapid response,” Dr Mundiya narrated.

Nhowe Mission Hospital, which is also a referral centre for seven local clinics, has gone a step further by training village health workers (VHWs) in the management of coronavirus and providing them with infrared thermometers and personal protective equipment (PPEs) as they go about their routine visits in the community.

“We service about seven clinics in this area and all our clinics received PPEs and thermometers. We even went a step further by providing our VHWs with the same so that they can attend to any suspected cases as they go about their businesses in the community.

“The VHWs are helping a lot with health education to the villages and farms and our thrust has seen us getting a lot of support from community leaders and opinion leaders.” Dr Mundiya said they went on a massive testing campaign of several strategic members of their community that interface with the public on the frontline. These include the police, businesspeople and their own staff.

“We have embarked on an ambitious campaign to try and test large numbers starting with frontline workers. So far we have taken close to 100 samples of which one was positive using the rapid test kit. A further test using PCR was, however, negative,” he added.

With a fully-functioning lab, which is able to complete CBC, full chemistry panels, thyroid, urine analysis, pregnancy tests, HIV tests, malaria tests and many others done on location, the hospital is well equipped to meet various needs of its rural surroundings.

It offers comprehensive care including in-patient and out-patient medical wards, a paediatric ward, a surgical ward and a maternity ward.

But, despite all these enormous strides, this hospital has its own demons.

Recently staff at the institution downed tools in protest over unfair distribution of resources and abuse by the hospital bosses. A nurse who spoke to The Sunday Mail on condition of anonymity for fear of victimisation painted a not-so-rosy picture of the institution.

“We are being threatened and verbally abused everyday regardless of the fact that we are working so hard. We didn’t join the nationwide nurses’ strike but ours is a local problem. We just want to be treated fairly and get the money others are getting,” said the nurse.

“They would rather let produce at the farm rot than give us and we are denied access to hospital vehicles whenever we want to travel to places like Harare.”

Responding to the allegations, Dr Mundiya said communication had been one of their biggest challenges. For instance, the hospital has staffers that are funded by the hospital, something that has been a source of friction as others do not fully understand how that works.

“Some staff members have different contracts from others and obviously they will get different salaries and that is the cause of the noise. However, we are meeting the workers representatives to iron out all the issues,” Dr Mundiya said.

Dr Mundiya said even though they knew that there are some staff members who want to cause disharmony, the institution was “internally dealing with the issues”.

Hakuna musha usina zvawo (no home is perfect), goes one profound Shona proverb. This may be the case with Nhowe Mission Hospital — but whatever the institution’s problems, the community in which it is located has benefited immensely not just from day-to-day health gains but also from capacity built to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

After all, it was created to “meet the needs of the neediest of the needy in Zimbabwe”.