Chronicle Editor
Thandeka Moyo-Ndlovu, [email protected]
GOVERNMENT has awarded 11 tenders valued at more than US$400 000 to facilitate the refurbishment of the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) as part of a comprehensive programme to modernise public health facilities countrywide.
The intervention is expected to enhance access to quality healthcare services at the giant health institution in line with the Second Republic’s Vision 2030, which aims to transform Zimbabwe into an upper middle-income economy status in the next six years.
Several infrastructure development and rehabilitation projects have already been implemented at UBH, which is one of two principal referral health centres for the southern part of the country.
The projects covered under the latest tenders include the installation of 29 closed-circuit television cameras in high-risk departments around the hospital and the refurbishment of the nurses’ home, which has provided accommodation for 45 male student nurses.
Other projects include a giant medical laboratory that is under construction, which will have several areas that cover patient investigation.
The laboratory will house nine departments including haematology, biochemistry, histopathology, immunology/serology, a blood bank, microbiology and viral load/tuberculosis testing. UBH chief medical officer, Dr William Busumani, told Chronicle that plans were underway to ensure that the hospital provides the best healthcare services for the southern region.
He said some of the publicised tender awardees had already completed their projects, while others were on site and working hard to meet the targets.
“With approval from the Government, we have managed to award several tenders and some of the jobs have been completed already as we continue modernising our hospital,” he said in an interview.
“The renovations included painting and paving of the main hospital, main stores and the obstetric fistula department, which for years was not easily accessible during the rainy season,” said Dr Busumani.
“We have also done some great refurbishment at the nurse’s home, which saw us providing 45 male nurses with accommodation. They have been living off campus, which was affecting the pass rate but we are happy that has been fixed.”
He said those contracted to fit and supply ICT gadgets had also done that, which will help UBH maintain order within its operations.
“We have also managed to install 29 CCTV cameras in some departments and, although we still have more of these, we prioritised high-risk areas.
“We are happy to announce that our cold rooms in the mortuary have been fixed, which has doubled our capacity as seven of the 14 rooms were not working before the project was implemented,” said Dr Busumani.
He added that refrigerating and air conditioning equipment had also been completed at the giant lab, one of the largest laboratories in the country and will eliminate the need to outsource some services for the hospital.
“Our lab is almost done, it is 99 percent done, and yes, we only await the installation of geysers for us to get to a point where we say it’s done.
“We have since decided to make use of our natural resources and use solar instead of electricity-powered geysers,” said Dr Busumani.
He added that UBH was also working on constructing a water reservoir that will ensure patients always have access to water.
“The issue of utilities may appear minor but once we run out of water or electricity as a hospital that may cause challenges. This reservoir will help us have about 25 megalitres for use by our hospital and staff, a great way to alleviate water challenges that we are currently facing as a city,” said the official.
“These are some of the projects in place that we are working on to ensure we offer the best services to members of the public.
“We also appeal to interested suppliers to respond to our adverts for groceries as we need a framework agreement to make sure we don’t run out of things like bread, meat, sugar, etc for our patients. We assure them that the Government will pay and they should not be reluctant to apply when we re-advertise the tender.”
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