admin
Marvelous Moyo Gwanda Correspondent
OPERATIONS at hospitals in Matabeleland South Province have been paralysed by the prolonged Zesa load-shedding, an official said.
In an interview yesterday, Matabeleland South Provincial Medical Director Dr William Busumani said the increased load- shedding hours was posing a lot of challenges to the hospitals in the province as they were not exempt from load-shedding.
Plumtree, Maphisa, Beitbridge, Filabusi and Esigodini district hospitals have been adversely affected by the load sheding.
“Our major challenge is that of electricity. All our hospitals are subjected to load-shedding. This has posed serious operational challenges for our health institutions,” said Dr Busumani.
Due to power deficit faced by the country, Gwanda Town like the rest of the country has of late been experiencing long hours of load-shedding.
Dr Busumani said hospitals could not rely on generators as they had limited cash to buy fuel.
He said 50litres of fuel were needed for every four hours for the hospital to operate normally when there is no electricity.
“When there is no electricity, our hospitals’ theatres will be crippled because we need light to carry out operations. We have piles and piles of dirty linen which require electricity for them to be attended to.
“However, since we don’t collect much from our patients, we are faced with financial constraints and cannot afford to buy fuel. The little funds we have are channelled towards sourcing food for our patients,” he said.
Online Reporter