Chronicle Editor
Ray Bande in CHISUMBANJE
PRESIDENT Emerson Mnangagwa yesterday fulfilled the promise to equip St Peter’s Mission Hospital in the Chisumbanje area of Chipinge South constituency.
The Zanu PF First Secretary, who made a brief stopover at the Roman Catholic run health facility before he went ahead to officially launch the party’s campaign trail at Mutema Secondary School in Mutema Musikavanhu constituency under the same District of Chipinge, handed over an assortment of medical equipment that include 24 hospital beds, four delivery bads one anesthetic machine, five oxygen concentrators, four patient monitors, ten humidifiers, four drip stands and two boxes nasal oxygen cannula. President Mnangagwa also handed over an automated wheelchair to Chief Vusani Musikavanhu.
In his donation handover speech, President Mnangagwa said Government is duty bound to intervene in situations of need.
“When Vice President Chiwenga came down here for a wellness programme with Minister Kirsty Covernty, he handed over a donation to this hospital but took heed of the things that this hospital needed. We therefore made a pledge to bring the equipment that was needed. It is Government’s responsibility to intervene where there is need. We are doing exactly that.
“We will be doing much more for the hospital because we know it is not enough. We can never solve everything in a day but we are happy that we have managed to fulfill the pledge we made,” he said.
In appreciation of the gesture, Dr Stephen Mbiri, the St Peter’s Mission Hospital head of institution, said: “We are really thankful to the President and Governemnt for this timely intervention. We badly needed this equipment and ambulance. This donation will certainly go a long way in improving the health delivery system in our catchment area.”
St Peter’s Checheche has recently undergone a major facelift with Government, as well as the local Member of the House of Assembly Cde Enock Porusingazi through the Constituency Development Fund, coming in handy in the uplift as per President Mnangagwa’s thrust of taking development to all corners of the country through his “leaving no place and no one behind” mantra.
The handover of the medical equipment is in sync with the broader national health strategy under which the Second Republic is championing the revamping and modernisation of the national health structure towards universal health coverage of quality consistent with an upper-middle income economy.
The ambulance services has been getting particular attention from Government since the coming on board of the Second Republic in 2017.
Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care Dr Constantino Chiwenga is ‘on record saying Government appreciates that the national health strategy will not be achieved if the country doesn’t have an efficient ambulance system through which patients can be efficiently transferred.
Under the strategy, Government has established a National Ambulance Directorate and is also moving away from mere “Ambulance” marked vehicles to state-of-the-art fully equipped ambulances complete with manned intensive care units.
As part of capacitating the National Ambulance Directorate, Government also establishment the Accident and Emergency Nursing School in Chivhu which will work very closely with the ambulance directorate.
Sidumisile Mabena
Online Reporter