admin
Angeline Mpofu Chronicle Reporter
CABINET is discussing ways of upgrading the country’s referral hospitals with a view to completing the facelift programme in two years, the Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa, said in Bulawayo last Friday.
Officiating at the United Bulawayo Hospitals nurses graduation ceremony, Dr Parirenyatwa said Cabinet was working on coming up with a financing model for the initiative that seeks to improve health service delivery in hospitals.
He said: “We want to renovate all premises that are no longer user friendly particularly Mpilo Central Hospital, United Bulawayo Hospitals and Mater Dei Hospital to improve health service delivery.
“These hospitals were established in the colonial era and the buildings are now old. If we want to improve health service delivery we must focus on improving the premises where the medical activities take place.”
Dr Parirenyatwa said the infrastructure in major hospitals should be user friendly.
“We need to go beyond narrow corridors at Mpilo Central Hospital by building better facilities that will enable the staff to effectively deliver health services to the patients. By 2015 there should be a difference in these hospitals,” he said.
Dr Parirenyatwa congratulated the 163 graduates who attained diplomas after completing a three-year course.
He said: “Nursing is more than a profession. It is a calling that you have proved to possess. Practise all the ethics and skills that you have acquired during your studies to help patients recover from all forms of sickness,” he said.
UBH chief executive officer Mrs Nonhlanhla Ndlovu urged the graduates to use their skills to transform the health sector for the better.
“We are proud to have produced nurses whom we are guaranteed will deliver in the country’s nursing medical fraternity. We hope that they will get employed and help the nation through the skills they have been equipped with,” she said.
Mrs Ndlovu said there was a need to build a fully fledged nursing school that would relieve pressure at the hospital.
“We are proud to be an institution that offers nursing studies but there is a shortage of resources at the hospital. “We need more premises so as to efficiently run the hospital and the nursing school as well. We need more specialist staff and computers so as to improve service delivery at the hospital and improve the nursing studies,” she said.
The Minister of State for Provincial Affairs in Bulawayo Cde Nomthandazo Eunice Moyo and Mayor Councillor Martin Moyo also attended the event.
Online Reporter