Government to decentralise hospital services

Sunday News Reporters
THE Ministry of Health and Child Care says plans are afoot to decentralise services that are being offered by referral hospitals to local clinics, in a bid to decongest referral health institutions in the country, as well as bring the services closer to the people.In an interview last week, Health and Chid Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa said the decentralisation drive would see local clinics offering x-ray services, caesarean operations and blood tests, among other such services that were only being offered at referral hospitals.

He said most clinics in the country were being underutilised, and Government was working on increasing their capacity so that they could provide more services, and ease the burden on referral hospitals.

“We are discussing the proposal in Cabinet. Our plans are to empower your local clinics so that they can offer some of the services that you normally get from central hospitals. Most of these clinics are being underutilised and as Government we feel that there is a need to increase their capacity so that they can ease the burden on the big Government hospitals.

“So by decentralising the services we would also be decongesting the referral hospitals which, everyday, have to deal with hundreds of patients, yet the burden can be distributed to smaller health facilities.

“Secondly, by increasing the capacity of your local clinic we would have also brought the service closer home. You will no longer need to travel long distances to have blood tests or x-rays. The service will be right on your doorstep,” he said.

Dr Parirenyatwa could, however, not give a time frame on when the decentralisation programme would be undertaken, saying Government was yet to secure adequate funding for the programme.

“That is our intention for now but we do not have the money to see the programme through. Right now we are only planning and after completing the planning stage we will obviously start looking for the funds so we can implement the programme.

“We can’t stop planning because we don’t have the funds, we will continue planning and look for funds at the same time,” he said.