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improve the health delivery system.
Mr Masunda was speaking after touring the state-of-the-art Rock Foundation Medical Centre in Mt Pleasant that was founded by Dr Munyaradzi Kereke.
“We need to pool resources together to come up with more state-of-the-art health facilities,” he said.
“It is important for the private sector to be given an opportunity to work with the city. We need to work together with private partners to revisit the health assets that we have. There are many facilities that are lying idle because they were affected by the period of hyperinflation.”
Mr Masunda said the city had a mammoth task running two hospitals, 12 polyclinics and 32 primary health care centres without partnerships.
He said Dr Kereke’s clinic was an example of how the private sector could complement the city in providing health facilities.
Mr Masunda was shown RMC’s strategic business units which include a trauma management unit, ambulance services, a dental clinic, and eye clinic, laboratory services, a pharmacy and radiology services covering CT-scans, General x-rays, fluoroscopy, 4D ultrasound and mammography for breast cancer screening.
RMC would next year open two theatres and an in-patient wing with an initial capacity of 30 beds.
“I am gobsmacked by what is being done here, its an incredible facility and state-of-the-art in terms of equipment,” said Mr Masunda.
“It is an incredible addition to the landscape of the city. I saw some of the most incredible equipment I never thought I would live to see in my lifetime.”
Mr Masunda said opposition that characterised the construction of the clinic should be over because all necessary procedures were followed.
He said Dr Kereke was welcome to apply for more land to expand the project as it benefited the city.
“The initial opposition was based on well established democratic right,” he said.
“The project was approved by the standing committee on environment management and that on health, education, housing, community and licensing. The stakeholders must accept that the democratic process was undertaken and we move on.”
Speaking at the same occasion, Dr Kereke said the Government should consider simplification of the registration for new and more cost effective drugs.
He said there should be a provision of legal framework and support for the local training of radiologists, an area that is acutely understaffed.
“In the interim, Government should consider putting in place measures to attract Zimbabwean specialists in the Diaspora as well as some from other countries to close the existing skills gap in the health sector,” Dr Kereke said.
The Government, he said, should also assist the private sector through VAT and import duty exemptions on imported equipment.
The tour was attended by various stakeholders from medical aid societies and health institutions.
Online Reporter