Outcry as Mpilo heart disease bay houses Covid-19 patients

MPILO Central Hospital has set itself on a collision course with Brave Little Hearts over the institution’s decision to remove children with congenital heart diseases (CHD) from the ward adopted by the latter to accommodate Covid-19 patients.

According to affected parents, the CHD bay at the Children’s Hospital has been housing Covid19 patients for the past two months with mothers being forced to be with their children in the ordinary ward that lacks the standard conditions for children with heart diseases. When a Sunday News crew visited the hospital, the CHD bay was closed with all the linen removed and the children occupying other wards. Hospital officials said the use of facilities was controlled by the hospital and denied removing CHD patients.

“The use of clinical space remains under the control of front-line staff as they see fit according to the clinical needs of all the patients at a given time especially during emergency situations such as Covid-19. We do not have a ward for CHD but a bay within a ward. If they signed an MoU the proper channel is to liaise with the public relations officer of the hospital,” said the acting chief executive officer, Professor Solwayo Ngwenya.

Ms Tendai Moyo the founder of Brave Little Hearts, a foundation that advocates for the needs of children with CHD said the unit had been housing the children but it was changed without notice.

“We got to know that the ward that we had agreed to use for the CHD patients is now a Covid-19 isolation unit. The children have been moved to the other regular wards mixed with other children but the challenge is that these children are prone to infections as they have weak immune systems hence the need to separate them from other children. The CHD unit is a specialised unit with air-conditioning to keep the children warm and they should not be mixed with other children with different conditions,” she said.

Ms Moyo, through various partners, refurbished the ward and installed air conditioners, a refrigerator, linen and are awaiting delivery of cardiac monitors that have been donated by a well-wisher.

“Why then did we sign a MoU that allows us to use the ward exclusively for cardiac patients when they just move them out without us knowing. These are special needs children who should be in a specialised ward,” she said.

The Brave Little Hearts team said they were, however, grateful for having been given a bay to use but only wanted clarity over the removal of the children.

Ms Moyo said the main reason for joining forces with Mpilo Central Hospital was to ensure that CHD patients could get aid nearer to their homes and also to allow specialists to treat them while they were local as opposed to parents traveling long distances to seek aid.

According to their MoU with the hospital, Brave Little Hearts is supposed to capacitate Mpilo Central Hospital with childfriendly infrastructure, equipment and human resources for an internationally-recognised cardiac facility and to also effect care and maintenance of the cardiac facility.

However, sources in the health sector said the hospital had the right to use the ward to deal with any condition, as it remained the property of the hospital, depending on the circumstances at a particular time. - @NyembeziMu