Zimbabwe to refurbish major hospitals

Government has embarked on a rehabilitation of hospitals along highways to boost capacity to handle emergencies, particularly emanating from road traffic accidents. Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa said the country's roads are becoming narrower, therefore, dangerous to users resulting in many accidents, which sadly have to be taken care of at these hospitals.

"There is a real disaster in terms of our roads. Our roads are now too narrow and more accidents are happening. Because of that, many of these accidents come to our institutions," said Dr Parirenyatwa. Last week he visited Chivhu Hospital along the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway where he observed that the hospital's emergency room had become smaller compared to the burden of emergencies attended there.

Dr Parirenyatwa said the hospital was a centre of excellence in emergency care. Work has started towards expanding and refurbishing it to cater for the accidents that occur along the Harare-Masvingo highway.

"We have identified Chivhu as one of the hospitals that should be a centre of excellence in terms of emergency care," said Dr Parirenyatwa. Government, he said, would include all the hospitals along the country's highways to ensure that they all have the capacity to deal with emergencies.

"We are looking at all the hospitals along the highways. We want to put up better emergency services, bring more cadres of diverse specialties so that all these hospitals are able to handle emergencies and Chivhu is going to be the first example of such a set up," he said.

Dr Parirenyatwa said apart from poor equipment, most of these institutions were understaffed despite the fact that all posts were fully occupied. He said he also visited Masvingo Provincial Hospital which had 188 nurses in post, a figure that met the hospital's establishment.

However, he said, in actual fact the hospital required 40 more nurses for it to be more efficient and effective in rendering service. "This situation is not peculiar to Masvingo Provincial Hospital alone. That is the situation in most of our institutions. We have to apply for the opening of all those posts so that we have the required number of nurses per station," he said.

Dr Parirenyatwa also said Government hospitals require 8 000 additional nurses if they are to effectively respond to the growing demand for health care in the country, Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa has said. He did not reveal the current number of nurses in State hospitals.

Dr Parirenyatwa made the remarks during the hand over of an ambulance donated to Chivhu Hospital by the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce recently. "At one time when we visited Masvingo General Hospital, we were told that the hospital had 188 nurses, but they needed 40 more nurses. "From there we then carried out a research around the country to ascertain the human resources situation in other hospitals," said Dr Parirenyatwa.

He said the research informed them of the deficit. "We realised that our country needed between 7 000 to 8 000 more nurses to be employed yet currently we have 3 000 qualified nurses that are unemployed," said Dr Parirenyatwa.

Last week, 12 people died and 45 others seriously injured when a bus and a haulage truck were involved in a head on collision at the 242km peg along the Masvingo-Beitbridge road. The victims were taken to Beitbridge district hospital.

Thirty other people died in March this year and 36 others were injured when a Pfochez bus burst a tyre and side swiped a Mercedes Benz Sprinter commuter omnibus along the Harare-Bulawayo highway.

In a statement yesterday, the Passengers Association of Zimbabwe (PAZ) said conditions at most of the hospitals were deplorable and Government should treat the issue as an emergency.

PAZ president Mr Tafadzwa Goliati said most institutions had an acute shortage of trained trauma medical and emergency staff with the emergency equipment outdated and in most cases defunct. He said Government should ensure that major referral, provincial and district hospitals have both in-hospital and out-hospital triage regimes on standby for emergency uses.

This refers to the sorting out of work protocols at impact site and standardisation of front office emergency room, in-hospital admission and treatment procedures based on medical emergency unity, availability of trained staff, appropriate medical facilities, supplies and proper patient-nurse distribution in any emergency.

"The situation in Zimbabwe's hospitals has reached a state of emergency as far as emergency preparedness and efficiency are concerned. In the event of a national disaster or a major road accident, the major referral hospitals in Zimbabwe cannot meet the demand. "There are virtually no pre-emergency protocols designed for deployment on the onset of a sudden emergency challenge beyond the mundane or ordinary occurrences," he said.