Online Reporter
Robin Muchetu, Health and Gender Editor
CANCER patients from the southern region of the country are set to start receiving treatment at the Mpilo Central Hospital Radiotherapy Centre by the end of the year as contractors are working to complete the installation of the two cancer treatment machines and a CT scanner. The new machines have the capacity to treat 100 cancer patients per day.
Speaking to Sunday News after an inspection of the renovation works on Thursday, the acting Chief Medical Officer Professor Solwayo expressed satisfaction with the pace of the project.
“On average, with all the regulatory authorities that are going to come and check, we are looking at November-December to have completed the work and we expect everything to be ready. It will be a good wait, but we will, at the end of the day, have a mordenised system in place.
“This will be helpful for the hospital and the patients, the Government has shown its massive commitment of improving public health services to the people and we have struggled for years to have something like this and it is going to serve a lot of patients who need radiation therapy who have been unable to access it over the years. It is a lifesaving project,” he said.
An uninterrupted power supply system will also be installed at the centre to deal with fluctuations in power supply to the hospital. He said in the 20 years he has been at the institution, it is a massive undertaking and praised the Government in its efforts to improve hospital services in Zimbabwe.
Mr Vulindlela Dube the acting director of operations at the hospital said renovations are ongoing and progressing well. “The low energy machine has been rigged into the room, the contractor is now doing room renovations and when they are done then they will continue with works on the machine towards commissioning. The renovations are covering the ceiling, walls and floors among other works.
“The renovations started over a month ago and the initial time line was 90-120 days to complete this whole exercise. Counting from a month ago we still have 60 more days to see the work being completed,” he said.
He added that when the renovation stage is completed, they move to the next phase of the installation.
“When done, the contractor will move to the next phase towards commissioning tests that have to be done by the supplier and then also the beneficiary will also go through some tests that have to be done. Our regulator the
Radiation Protection Authority of Zimbabwe will also do its own assessments before the machines are commissioned,” he said.
The personnel to work on the machines are undergoing training.
“Trainings (on how the machines work) for our physicist and radiotherapists are going to be provided by the supplier. Some of them are booked for training in August before the installations are complete, they will be doing online training then the other part of the training will be done when they are now set up and commissioned,” he added.
Regarding service contracts to ensure machines are kept at their optimum condition, the hospital said they have everything in place.
“The Government has been entering into service contracts for other equipment, not only these cancer treatment machines. There is the MRI machine that was installed and they are working on a service contract for it before the expiry of the warranty period. When we procure this equipment, we have a guaranteed warranty period of two years, whereby the manufacturer will be maintaining the equipment then at the expiry of the two years then we get into a service level agreement with the manufacturer for a period of between three to five years depending on what is available, renewable before it expires,” he said.
“We realised the challenges that we had before and we don’t want a repeat of that. We are therefore certainly going to have those service agreements with the supplier.”
The high energy machine is also awaiting installation with room preparations already underway. The hospital envisages that by September, the machine will have been commissioned.
The site supervisor Mr Goodwill Ndebele said: “We are working on the pit and we are almost done, we will then work on the roof too and ceiling after electric cables installation. We will also install an uninterrupted power supply system. We realised that the roof is leaking so we will repair the roof before we install the machine too,” he added.
The cancer machines were procured via a special levy, the Sugar Tax, that has seen Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals in Harare also receiving the cancer machines —@NyembeziMu
