Chronicle Editor
Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu, Gwanda Correspondent
GWANDA Provincial Hospital is in urgent need of a Covid-19 testing machine as the hospital is relying on Mpilo Central Hospital laboratory.
The hospital authorities said they are sometimes forced to release returnees from quarantine facilities before receiving the tests results due to delays.
The authorities said the hospital’s testing machine was taken to Beitbridge to test those returning from South Africa.
Gwanda district has two quarantine centres which are Guyu Training Centre and DDF Training Centre.
Speaking during a Gwanda district taskforce committee on Covid-19 meeting, Gwanda Environmental health training officer, Mr Clever Ncube said the district was facing challenges in having results for Polymerise Chain Reaction (PCR) tests.
“We don’t have a Covid-19 testing machine as the one we had was sent to Beitbridge where there is high demand for testing because of the number of returnees from SA. We re now forced to send specimen to Mpilo Central Hospital lab for testing and the results take long to come,” he said.
Mr Ncube said at times they had no transport to take the specimen or collect the results.
He said due to the delays in receiving the results, they were at times forced to release the returnees from the quarantine centres before receiving the results if the individuals were not showing symptoms of Covid-19.
Mr Ncube said the provincial hospital urgently needs a testing machine to enable the district to test and release the results on time.
He said they had stopped conducting RDT tests as some results were misleading.-@DubeMatutu
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter