adminThe Masvingo provincial medical director Dr Robert Mudyiradima confirmed that the only radiographer at the hospital was on leave hence the institution could not offer X-ray services thereby leaving patients stranded.
“It is true that we have one radiographer at the referral hospital and the situation is bad. We want to apologise for the inconvenience caused to patients but the situation is beyond our control,” he said.
Dr Mudyiradima said the province was waiting for permission from Government to recruit more health workers including radiographers.
“Interviews were conducted for radiographers’ posts but because of the jobs freeze imposed by Treasury, we cannot recruit,” said Dr Mudyiradima.
He said the only radiographer at the hospital had not gone on leave for a long time.
“The radiographer has not gone on leave for four consecutive years and that is not fair. We recently allowed him to go on leave and at the moment there is no radiographer at the hospital.
“However, we have asked him to stagger his leave days and as I speak, he will be coming to work after every two weeks, work for one week and take a break until he exhausts his leave days. This is just a contingency measure in order to address the situation,” he said.
Dr Mudyiradima said he hoped the situation would improve next year when the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare is allowed to recruit more staff.
“We have a shortage of staff at the hospital. We are supposed to have 12 doctors at the hospital but we are operating with only six. We are happy that the province has managed to retain the few health workers we have,” he said.
Staff levels at the provincial referral health institution are generally low and the most affected departments are those that need specialists.
Online Reporter