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George Maponga in Masvingo
Government is mulling introducing public-private partnerships to rehabilitate and re-equip state-owned hospitals as a majority of them have deteriorated and are poorly equipped owing to years of under funding.
Health and Child Care Deputy Minister Dr Paul Chimedza said on Friday that Government was concerned with the state of most Government-owned hospitals which he said were in urgent need of rehabilitation.
He said Government did not have the capacity to adequately fund the rehabilitation of public hospitals, saying the introduction of the public-private partnerships was one of the ways being considered to attract funding into the health sector.
“Government is concerned with the state of its hospitals throughout the country which have been affected by inadequate funding over the past decade owing to illegal sanctions,” said Dr Chimedza.
“We have been relying on Treasury for funding the health sector, but the money is inadequate. So, we are considering strategies like introducing private-public partnerships to attract funding into the health sector.
“We could invite a private player to rehabilitate a hospital and then allow the investor to operate one of the wings at the hospital for a certain period of time to enable the investor to recoup their investment. We need funding in the health sector.”
Dr Chimedza said that most Government hospitals were poorly equipped and there was an urgent need to embark on a retooling programme to improve the health delivery system.
He said Government wanted to rehabilitate or build completely new hospitals in some provinces where the provincial referral health centres were either failing to cope with demand for health services or had obsolete equipment.
He singled out Masvingo General Hospital saying Government wanted to build a new provincial health referral centre in the province.
“Plans for a new provincial hospital in Masvingo have been on the cards for a long time but we do not know as yet when construction will start because there is no money at the moment. The land to built the new hospital has already been secured but the challenge at the moment is funding,” he said.
Masvingo General Hospital is failing to cope with demand for health services in the province owing to a number of challenges ranging from lack of critical equipment most of which is now in state of disrepair and is failing to provide specialist health care.
Masvingo city council has already donated land on which the new provincial hospital would be built along the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway.
Online Reporter