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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke in Masvingo
The National Pharmaceutical Company of Zimbabwe (Natpharm) Masvingo medical warehouse has benefited from a solar power initiative which has improved its cold chain services and the storage of medicines.
Through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) -Global Fund Solar for Health project being implemented by the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Natpharm received a 201 kilowatt system to provide the institution with constant back up power.
Natpharm Masvingo branch manager, Mrs Linda Chamboko said the solar system had helped them to reduce their energy bill since 2019.
“Before the project, we used to have power shortages due to load-shedding so we could not power our cold rooms and other essentials we require. We relied on the generator system but now we have the solar system we have constant power supply,” she said.
“The medicines that we store have temperatures that they require to be stored at. We have Antiretroviral treatment (ART) medicines, Malaria and TB medicines which require to be stored between 15 to 25 degrees celcius. We have two cold rooms where we store the covid vaccines, maternal and child health medicines like the oxytocins, rabbies vaccines, snake anti- venoms and other medicines that require temperatures between 2 to 8 degrees with no temperature fluctuations.”
To ensure that medicines were preserved, she said they would be kept in the cold rooms at Masvingo provincial hospital while others were kept at the Natpharm warehouse in Harare and would then be transported using the cold chain trucks on demand.
Mrs Chamboko said the new solar system could provide dedicated power to the warehouse for up to four days.
She said the availability of power had also significantly reduced their electricity bill and the expense of running a back up generator by up to 38 percent.
“We usually generate more electricity than we need especially during summer so we are also able to feed the excess electricity into the national grid. When we do this we get credits from Zesa which then translate to a lower electricity bill at the end of the month,” said Mrs Chamboko.
The Natpharm warehouse is one of 1044 health facilities across Zimbabwe that have been equipped with solar systems through the Solar for Health project since 2017.
The project has a target to put solar power in 1600 public health institutions across the country.
According to Masvingo provincial medical director Dr Amadeus Shamu, at least 100 facilities had so far received the solar systems in the province.
He said the solar systems had ensured that vital health departments such as maternity, laboratories, intensive care units and pharmacies had constant power.
“This has gone a long way in improving the service delivery in the province. As we all know, there have been incessant power cuts so the solar for health project has come in handy to fill in that gap so that our facilities can have continuous power supply. This has also improved health services at hospitals and clinics alike,” he said.
Online Reporter