Mpilo adopts ‘bucket system’ to cope with water crisis

Charity Chikara, Sunday News Reporter

ONE of Zimbabwe’s largest referral hospitals, Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo has since Friday gone without water supplies with authorities saying they have since resorted to the bucket system to alleviate the situation.

This comes as the city is enduring a 72-hour water shedding schedule as the local authority struggles to ensure a steady supply of water, with some suburbs going for as much as six-days without any supplies.

Mpilo has reportedly not been spared from the water shedding schedule with the hospital going since last Friday without any water supplies.

In an interview, Mpilo Central Hospital chief executive officer, Professor Solwayo Ngwenya said the hospital, in a bid to ease the water situation bedeviling the hospital, has since adopted the ‘bucket system’ to keep service deliver afloat.

“Water shedding is there everywhere, it’s not a bizarre prevalence that there is water shedding, everyone is experiencing it. If we do not have water supply, we just use the bucket system to get us through efficient service delivery,” he said.

Mpilo Hospital is one of the city’s major public hospitals that serves the population of Bulawayo Metropolitan Province and referrals from Matabeleland North and South, Midlands and Masvingo Provinces.