adminMonica Cheru-Mpambawashe Lifestyle Editor
Harare Central Hospital’s decision to detain the Mutasa quadruplets and their mother in hospital because their one-roomed house is not adequate for the enlarged family is a wonderfully touching gesture, especially coming from people who mostly give service to the less fortunate among us.
But I cannot help asking if they have not perhaps erred in their sentimentality.
While the hearts may be deemed to be in the right place, the practical part of the decision raises a number of questions.
The role of the hospital is clearly defined; to provide specified services. Such services include treatment and delivery of pregnancies. But now they seem to have taken on the role of the Social Welfare Department, which is supposed to be in existence to address such issues at the detriment of their own core duties.
For are they not prejudicing some expectant mothers who need that hospital space occupied by the mother who is done with their services?
It is a fact that we have high maternal mortality rates because most women are failing to access professional health care when they need it most. Some women are opting for home deliveries because they cannot afford hospital care.
Harare Central Hospital is a referral centre which means that it is women with urgent natal issues who need that space.
The next question that begs an answer is whether the hospital staff know the home conditions of every child they discharge from their paediatric unit? How many families are living in one-roomed apartments with several children in this country? After all, this particular family was prepared to raise at least two children in their one room. What are an additional two?
How many needy cases does the hospital face on a daily basis?
Do they have no clients who suffer in agony because they cannot afford some services?
How many children are going around without their rights to a name because their birth records are being held at health centres where their mothers delivered them for non-payment of fees?
Is Harare Central Hospital itself free from this dilemma?
If Harare Central Hospital was to uniformly apply the standard it has chosen to set for the Mutasa quads, would it continue in its core business or would it become a home for disadvantaged kids and their mothers?
There were quads born in Chiredzi at the same time as the Harare Hospital ones. The family appeared not to be an affluent one, but mother and four infants were discharged and are presumably getting on with their lives. Harare Central Hospital on the other hand seems bent on creating a donor dependency syndrome in the Mutasa family yet they themselves do not have the wherewithal to meet the demand and must depend on the goodwill of third parties. While I have no problem with anyone exercising their right to compassion for fellow humans, I certainly feel that those individual feelings should not be allowed to overrule set institutional obligations. The hospital must concentrate on its core business which is always a demanding venture.
Another angle to view the hospital’s position with disfavour is that of a social nature. This is a married woman that they are keeping separate from her spouse who has openly stated that he is willing to take responsibility for his family although he will gladly welcome helping hands. The longer his family remains in his hospital the more he becomes an object of ridicule rather than a receptacle of sympathy.
In addition the blessing of the quads should not be taken to have resulted in an automatic evaporation of normal human desires between man and wife. How long is this couple expected to forego their conjugal rights? I say this advisedly because it is a fact that infidelity rates are high while STI cases and new HIV infections are causes for concern.
There are many children being raised in less than ideal circumstances in this country. The infants of beggars and vendors are daily exposed to filthy pavements which is where they crawl, sleep, eat and play almost every day. Children in many high density areas are exposed to horrors such as raw sewage. Some children in rural and resettlement areas live far from health services and must get over illnesses as best as they can or die. The same goes for the urban poor who may as well be just as remote from the requisite services because they cannot afford them. Rural and urban poverty is exposing many children to life’s vicissitudes at a tender age. Sexual abuse, parental negligence, abandonment, death from curable diseases and malnutrition are just a few of the problems.
There is need to create effective social welfare nets to give all such children a fair chance in life. The first step is that all stakeholders take a stance to bring about the change. But cosmetic efforts that affect just one drop in the ocean are not going to do it. Let Harare Hospital staff join all like-minded citizens to push the Government for effective policies that help all needy children and not spend all their energies on blowing one case out of all proportion.
Online Reporter