adminNow that is unacceptable because the lives of patients are being put at risk. Some of the patients might be requiring urgent life saving operations and the continued delay in being attended to might lead to unnecessary loss of life. Other patients might be requiring minor operations but the longer they take waiting to be attended might lead their conditions to deteriorate leading to complications.
Water has become a perennial problem in most urban centres in Zimbabwe but contingency measures should be put in place to ensure that it is always available especially for essential services such as hospitals. A worrying trend is developing in Zimbabwe where abnormal things are now being regarded as normal just because it is happening countrywide.
Responsible authorities must be taken to task and take corrective measures. We honestly cannot have patients, some who travel from as far away places as Mutare, Beitbridge, Masvingo and Nkayi being made to wait for days on end without being attended. Even those patients based in Bulawayo should not be made to wait. Although UBH is exempted from the Bulawayo City Council’s 72-hour water shedding exercise, it is seriously affected when surrounding suburbs do not have water, as the pressure at the hospital would be low.
Patients admitted at the hospital for as long as two months ago are still to be operated because service delivery has been affected at the health institution. Besides water shortages, the hospital also faces a shortage of surgeons. The water problems require both Bulawayo City Council and the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare under which UBH falls to put heads together and come up with a long-term solution to the water woes.
The shortage of surgeons is entirely a Ministry of Health problem that they must deal with. It is the lives of people involved here and what can worry council and health authorities more than preserving life? UBH chief executive officer Mrs Nonhlanhla Ndlovu acknowledges the challenges facing the hospital saying it had a huge number of patients to cater for.
We are of the opinion that the huge number of patients going to referral centres in Harare and Bulawayo is an indictment on Government to build more referral hospitals in other major centres other than in the capital and the second biggest city. We understand Government does not have money for such huge capital projects but in situations such as the one facing patients at UBH, the State must stretch the last dollar it has to undertake such projects.
Government can even borrow money to build more referral hospitals. While the private sector has chipped in by putting up health facilities, these are usually out of the reach of ordinary people because they cannot afford the fees charged there.
We encourage churches to build more hospitals if they can because a good number of mission hospitals offer excellent services and their charges are also reasonable. Zimbabweans can also assist by driving safely and always taking precautionary measures to guard against avoidable accidents, which maim people.
According to UBH chief executive officer Mrs Ndlovu, the waiting list of patients in need of operations is growing because of an influx of patients, especially accident victims. Let us take heed of the safety campaigns by the police to reduce accidents on our roads and ultimately the number of patients requiring operations.
Online Reporter