adminMkhululi Ncube, Sunday News Correspondent
BULILIMA West Member of Parliament Cde Dingimuzi Phuthi has called on the Government to decentralise health services to district level so that ordinary members of the public have quality health care.
Cde Phuthi was speaking in an interview with Sunday News, during the World TB Day pre-commemoration conference and Zimbabwe’s first national TB patient cost survey dissemination of survey findings, policy dialogue and action planning in Bulawayo.
Cde Phuthi says Plumtree District Hospital is overwhelmed as it is taking care of two districts, Bulilima and Mangwe as well as Plumtree Town.
“It is better for the Government to turn Ndolwane Hospital into a district hospital as the economic challenges are hampering efforts to build a new hospital,” said Cde Phuthi.
He said Ndolwane Hospital was much more advanced as it already boosts of a hospital kitchen, wards for men and women, pregnant women’s waiting shelter, delivery rooms and has a staff complement of 42 nurses.
“The community has not stopped in its vision of developing the hospital as they have contributed 66 000 bricks and hundreds bags of cement to build houses for health personnel,” said Cde Phuthi.
Added Cde Phuthi: “The hospital has a dentist ward, more blankets in its store rooms than are at Plumtree Hospital, a pharmacy and many refrigerators.”
Cde Phuthi bemoaned the high cases of Tuberculosis in Matabeleland South Province which he said could best be addressed if each district has a district hospital and well-functioning clinics.
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Temba Dube