Avenues Clinic donates hospital beds to United Methodist Church

The Avenues Clinic on Tuesday handed over to the United Methodist Church 60 hospital beds, which will be used for waiting mother homes at church missions in Manicaland.

The waiting mother homes, one of which is at Anoldine Clinic in Makoni district, while the other is at Old Mutare Mission, accommodate expectant mothers who are waiting to give birth.

Handing over the beds to the United Methodist Church, The Avenues Clinic chairman, Mr Pearson Chitando, said the beds were surplus to requirements, following the clinic's purchase of new beds.

"The old beds are strong and serviceable and can fit in any medical facility that will have need of them," he said.

He told church officials that the clinic was aware of the excellent work the church was doing in providing health facilities throughout the country, serving rural communities in particular.
 
He said he was glad that the efforts of The Avenues Clinic in upgrading its facilities were contributing to the upgrading of some of the church's facilities.

"I am told that you are upgrading your waiting mother homes to bring them up to Ministry of Health and Child Care standards and in the hope that providing expanded facilities that can accommodate more pregnant mothers awaiting delivery will contribute to a reduction in the country's maternal mortality rate, which, as we all know, is unacceptably high," Mr Chitando said.

"There are a number of reasons why some women die in childbirth. One of the contributory factors is the difficulty that pregnant women living a long way from a clinic or hospital have in reaching a health facility in time when they go into labour and there are complications.
"Making it possible for mothers to stay in a waiting mother home prior to giving birth should help overcome this problem," he said.

Fifteen of the donated bedswill go to the church's new upgraded waiting mother home at Anoldine Clinic, which has been designed to accommodate 15 expectant mothers but currently has no beds.
The remaining 45 beds will go to a waiting mother home at Old Mutare Hospital, which the church plans to upgrade to accommodate 60 mothers. There are 12 mothers in the existing waiting mother home, although it was only designed to take eight women.

Thanking the Avenues Clinic for the donation, United Methodist Church Episcopal Health Board Coordinator Hannah Mafunda said the church's health board depended on local and international partners to carry out its work.

She said the church valued partners such as The Avenues Clinic. She expressed the hope that the donation marked the beginning of a strong partnership between the two.

"This will go a long, long way in helping with our upgrading of facilities. We appreciate the gift that it is. To us these beds are new," she said.

The Avenues Clinic managing director, Mrs Merissa Kambani, assured Mrs Mafunda that management also hoped that the donation marked the beginning of an on-going partnership with United Methodist Church.

"We are pleased to have been able to assist you. You can be assured that if we have other opportunities to help you, we will," she said.