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Sunday Mail Reporter
When a Beatrice woman, Sevria Ruchaka, was viciously mauled by a crocodile while fetching water from Mupfure River a fortnight ago, a community clinic had to refer her to the capital, Harare, as her wounds were too deep for them to stitch up.
It was the beginning of her ordeal.
While hospitals were open, they were manned by skeletal staff providing equally skeletal services, as junior and middle-level doctors continued with their no-show purportedly because they were too incapacitated to report for duty. Without the wherewithal to seek care for her festering wounds at private medical facilities, she slowly began losing hope.
She, however, was eventually referred to Chitungwiza Hospital, where she was told she would be attended to.
“I was referred to Harare, they said my wounds are too deep and I had to go to a bigger hospital. Ever since I came here I am getting better from the help I am receiving here,” she told The Sunday Mail.
Bucking the trend
Today marks day 55 since the doctors went on strike.
Notwithstanding Government’s decision to review allowances upwards for health sector workers by a further 40 percent from the 60 percent offered a week ago on October 18, the doctors continue to dig in.
The latest review will see junior doctors and nurses earning around $2 400 and $720, respectively, in on-call allowances only.
However, doctors and nurses at Chitungwiza Hospital have bucked the trend and are doing their duties with alacrity.
“Since I was admitted, a doctor has been coming to check on me every day,” said Ingidzai Mukudota, who was being treated for an undisclosed ailment.
Government is now shoring up medical supplies to the institution as more people turn to it for assistance.
Speaking to The Sunday Mail after a recent tour of the hospital, Health and Child Care Minister Dr Obadiah Moyo — who is a former chief executive officer of the institution — applauded staff for their dedicated service.
“In as far as the number of staff is concerned, I have to say that I am very grateful for their presence,” said Minister Moyo.
“I realised that at Chitungwiza hospital we have got consultants who are working. I personally visited theatres and I found consultant obstetricians working. It appears that the general tendency and culture is that staff at Chitungwiza Hospital will always be at work and negotiate while they are at work. That is the principle we want to instil in our doctors elsewhere . . .
“We have to help them with more resources since it is the only hospital in this province which is fully functional, so we have to give them as much resources as possible in terms of medicines; they must get that support,” he said.
Chitungwiza Hospital public relations officer Mrs Audrey Tasaranarwo said staff at the hospital were motivated by the call to duty.
“Our doctors heeded Government’s call . . . to come back to work and negotiate while they are doing work. The nurses have a passion for the sick. They live in the community and it does not sit well with them to see their fellow Zimbabweans suffering. Our hospital is situated in the heart of the community and, thus, we are there to save life and alleviate suffering,” she said.
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