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Tawanda Mangoma in Chikombedzi
Over 50 000 villagers here are battling to access proper medical care as the sole health referral institution, Chikombedzi Hospital, is failing to get enough resources for its daily operations. The hospital is struggling to function owing to donor fatigue and inadequate funding from central government.
Built by the Free Methodist Church during the liberation struggle, Chikombedzi Hospital has not received any meaningful financial injection during the past 10 years.
This has severely compromised critical services at the institution with facilities such as the mortuary non-functional forcing patients to shun the hospital which is also grappling with a serious shortage of food and medicine.
Speaking during a tour of the institution, Mrs Ruth Hlongwani, the hospital matron said there was need for a complete overhaul of all departments as everything was in bad shape.
“We have an electricity bill of over $120 000 and Zesa is suing us at the High Court. Our mortuary has been down for over a decade and we are forced to release bodies instantly because we don’t have a functional mortuary to keep them refrigerated,” said Mrs Hlongwani.
The hospital is also struggling to secure enough food for patients.
“As you can see we have a 160-bed hospital which caters for 14 clinics in our vicinity. All the referral cases come here but all our ambulances are down and we are failing to attend to patients because we don’t have the capacity.”
Mrs Hlongwani said water problems were also affecting operations as their boreholes dry up quickly owing to depletion of the water table.
“We don’t have a qualified pharmacist here and also medicines to give to our patients. We used to get assistance from donors and well-wishers but that was long ago. We recently received a container of bandages but that is not enough, we have more pressing challenges.”
“Our laundry is done manually because we cannot use the water from the boreholes in our washing machines because it’s of poor quality. We also lack capacity to offer our patients a balanced diet, in most cases relatives bring food but it’s unsustainable,” said Mrs Hlongwani.
She said they also had one medical doctor while procurement of medical supplies had become difficult as their suppliers were refusing payment in Real Time Gross Settlement dollars.
Chiredzi South National Assembly member Cde Kallisto Gwanetsa said challenges at Chikombedzi Hospital required urgency as lives of patients were at risk.
“The provision of quality medical care is of paramount importance to every human being. This is just a testimony of how villagers from my constituency are struggling due to collapsing service at health institutions.
I am even shocked by some of the information which I received here, the Zesa bill is just too much hence something must be done to help save this institution,” said Cde Gwanetsa.
Online Reporter