admin
Harare –The Zimbabwe Health Care Trust (ZHCT) has secured an investor to finance re-opening of the the Ekusileni Medical Centre (EMC) in Bulawayo which was closed in 2004 after it was discovered that it was using obsolete equipment. At least $36 million is required to re-open the hospital, which is the brain child of the late Vice President Dr Joshua Nkomo.
ZHCT founding trustee Dr Athanasius Dube told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care on Tuesday that the Trust had secured an investor from South Africa after failing to attract a local one.
The ZHCT was mandated to materialise the project and is made up of eight founding trustees who include health professionals, business people, community leaders and the Nkomo family.
Dr Dube said the $36 million needed was arrived at after a consultant carried out evaluations on the amount required to fully complete the building, which was constructed using National Social Security Authority (NSSA) funds.
“At least $36 million is required to open phase one of the project,” he said.
“Certainly this year we will be opening.”
The continued closure of the hospital has become a cause for concern for Bulawayo residents.
Once operational the hospital is expected to improve the provision of the health care in the southern region.
The institution is set to run 23 departments with 157 beds that would be increased to 265.
EMC is also set to absorb scores of jobless nurses and doctors who graduated from Mpilo Central Hospital, the United Bulawayo Hospitals and the National University of Science and Technology Medical School.
The hospital briefly opened in 2004 but was promptly closed after it was discovered that the equipment worth millions of dollars that it had acquired was obsolete.
EMC was built in 2000 as a specialist hospital following the realisation that there was a need to establish more medical facilities in the city.
On completion, the medical centre was expected to provide facilities for a medical school, specializing in physiotherapy and pathology.
New Ziana
Online Reporter