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George Maponga Masvingo Bureau
Renovation of halls of residence at Masvingo Provincial Hospital Nursing School is now back on track after the Government released funding and the school is expected to see 120 nursing students securing accommodation before the end of this year.
The halls of residence at the provincial nursing school were closed last year owing to challenges related to the obsolete water and sewer reticulation system, forcing students to live at home if from the city or seek lodgings if they were from outside.
However, with the Second Republic under President Mnangagwa pulling all the stops to make sure the health delivery system was rebooted to meet the needs of a middle income economy society as envisioned under Vision 2030, tremendous progress has been made to renovate the halls of residence.
Masvingo Provincial Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Noel Zulu said work was now progressing speedily after Government injected funding for the project.
He appealed for patience, saying a lot of good work was being done to revive the glorious old days at the provincial health referral institution where most of the facilities were ageing.
‘’We expect to see the first batch of nursing students at the hospital coming back into the halls of residence at the end of next month and they will be coming in phases until all the four wings are ready for occupation again,’’ said Dr Zulu.
‘’The good thing is that we have received funding. Government has availed the funds so there is going to be speedy rolling out of the work to renovate the reticulation system at the halls of residence which we are completely overhauling and replacing.’’
Dr Zulu said considerable ground has been made to revive the fortunes of Masvingo Provincial Hospital and meet the demands of a modern society in line with Vision 2030.
‘’We are appealing to our community to be patient because we are doing a lot of things to change the face of our health institution which is the biggest public health referral facility in Masvingo, Rome was not built in a day but I want to assure the Masvingo community that we are getting there,’’ he said.
Nursing students were complaining of the rigours of commuting to and from work daily from city suburbs dotted around the hospital, but Dr Zulu said the work being undertaken justified the waiting.
“We are saying to them they must be patient because we are renovating and rebuilding and even upgrading, everything is going according to plan and work on the first wing out of four is almost complete for students to move in,” he said.
“We are now left to grapple with procurement bottlenecks but the good thing is that Government had provided the funding.’’
Dr Zulu appealed to the Masvingo community and other stakeholders to chip in and assist in the reconstruction of the hospital to transform it into a modern health referral institution that meets expectations.
‘’We want everyone to come on board and contribute to the unfolding vision to transform our hospital into a modern facility for the benefit of the Masvingo community and beyond. I am happy that slowly, but surely we are getting there,’’ he said.
Masvingo Provincial Hospital was commissioned soon after independence to cater for around 30 000 people, but following subsequent upgrades, the health facility’s catchment area now has more than one million people.
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