Online Reporter
George Maponga
Masvingo Bureau
The US$40 million upgrade of Masvingo Provincial Hospital into a university teaching institution is progressing according to plan, with the first phase of works expected to be completed by the end of next month, paving the way for the first group of 20 Great Zimbabwe University (GZU)’s medical students to start their clinical studies early next year.
Masvingo Provincial Hospital has since been renamed Masvingo Provincial University Teaching Hospital, and the ongoing upgrade will see the facility’s transformation into a 400-bed state-of-the-art health facility that will revolutionise health delivery in the province while also being a hub for medical tourism.
The Second Republic under President Mnangagwa is upgrading the hospital as part of Vision 2030 of an upper middle-income society and the facility will allow the inaugural group of 20 medical students at GZU Simon Mazorodze School of Medical and Health Sciences to undertake their clinical studies.
Dean of GZU’s Simon Mazorodze School of Medical and Health Sciences Professor Jacob Mufunda, on Wednesday, said all was in place for Masvingo Provincial University Teaching Hospital to accommodate the first group of medical students in February next year.
“The necessary refurbishments to enable our students to undertake the first year of their clinical studies are set to be completed by the end of next month and we are quite optimistic that the work will be completed by that time so that our medical students can start their clinical studies next year,” he said.
“The medicine degree is now six years, the first three years, students will be doing their medical science degree and then the other three years they will be doing their medical or surgery studies to make it six years so the infrastructure that is now in place at Masvingo Provincial University Teaching Hospital is commensurate for our students to undertake their first year of clinical studies.”
Prof Mufunda said the medical students had already been allocated 30 rooms to stay at the Masvingo Provincial University Teaching Hospital School of Nursing Training.
“Ideally, we will need about 90 rooms for our medical students, which means construction has to start from the ground to make sure we have enough accommodation for our students.”
According to Professor Mufunda, there was still a lot of work that needed to be undertaken to make sure specialists were incentivised to come and teach at the university teaching facility.
”We need to attract specialists who will teach at the institution and we are looking at specialists such as urologists, pulmonologists, neurologists and others and these specialists need to be incentivised to come and work at the teaching hospital so that our patients stop traveling to Harare or Bulawayo for specialist medical care,” he said.
For GZU medical students to continue their studies at the university teaching hospital beyond the fourth year, they also needed to build a new lecture theatre, laboratory, computer centre and a learning centre .
A new out-patients wing for specialists, neurosurgery, urology and general surgery wings, among others will have to be built at the university teaching hospital.
The first phase of the upgrading has already seen the renovation of Masvingo Provincial Hospital’s administration block, male and female wards as well as the out-patients department.
A fully equipped high dependence unit with 15 beds and an intensive care unit with six beds is also nearing completion.
Permanent Secretary for Masvingo Provincial Affairs and Devolution Dr Addmore Pazvakavambwa said the upgrading works were going according to plan.
“Everything is on course and going according to plan and President Mnangagwa will commission the facility once upgrading work has been completed,” he said.
Dr Pazvakavambwa, who toured the facility on Wednesday to assess progress, expressed satisfaction with the work in transforming the institution into a world-class health facility that will go beyond training medical students.
