adminVictor Maphosa Herald Correspondent
Preparations to build an infectious disease hospital in Chitungwiza are at an advanced stage, it has been learnt. The local authority’s director of health and environmental services, Dr Tonderai Kasu, said the draft project proposal has already been completed.
The department of urban planning, he said, is presently in the process of coming up with architectural drawings and designs for the hospital.
“In terms of preparations, we have so far secured the commitment of the full caretaker council that an Infectious Diseases Hospital for Chitungwiza be built by council,” said Dr Kasu.
“We have identified the site for the construction of the hospital and the department of urban planning has been asked to initiate the process of coming up with the architectural drawings and designs for the hospital.”
Dr Kasu said it was imperative for the town, which is the third-largest and fastest growing city in Zimbabwe, to have an infectious disease hospital.
“Chitungwiza is the third-largest and fastest growing urban centre in the country in terms of population,” he said. “Chitungwiza’s large and growing population requires its own infectious disease hospital for public health reasons.
“In this time when there are typhoid and cholera outbreaks, an infectious disease hospital becomes part of the necessary physical infrastructure that Chitungwiza city health department should have in order to fulfil its mandate of preventing and controlling disease outbreaks.
“Building an infectious disease hospital for Chitungwiza is thus an investment from which would be derived multi-generational social and societal benefits.”
It is believed that the envisaged hospital will better manage multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB patients.
Other infectious diseases will be effectively managed as well.
“There would be better and more effective case management of diseases such as typhoid and cholera, and it would be easier to set up a treatment camp in the event of an outbreak of such conditions,” said Dr Kasu.
“It would also be easier to set up isolation facilities for conditions such as Ebola if the need were to arise, considering Chitungwiza’s close location to the airport.”
Challenges faced by Chitungwiza residents when seeking medical help from other health institutions, Dr Kasu said, would be a thing of the past when the hospital is completed.
“We have been experiencing challenges in the management of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis patients,” he said. “Chitungwiza MDR-TB patients are often turned away from the City of Harare’s infectious disease hospitals —Beatrice Road Infectious Disease Hospital and Wilkins Hospital — because they are considered to be out of zone for Harare.
“In the past, the same patients would also be turned away from Chitungwiza Central Hospital because that hospital is not an infectious diseases hospital.
“The hospital has since set up a treatment unit for MDR-TB patients, but this has not been a comprehensive and holistic permanent solution to the problem.”
Chitungwiza has identified Tatenda Hall in Unit H as possible site for the planned health institution.
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