'Install CCTVs in hospitals'

The Government should consider installing Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) in major health institutions to ensure patients receive appropriate and quality health services, a local non-governmental health lobby group said.

This comes in the wake of increasing cases the organisation reportedly receiving patients' citing ill-treatment by some health workers.

Speaking at a summit held last week in Harare, Citizen Health Watch (CHW) executive director, Fungisai Dube said health workers attitudes continue to come on top of the list in health service delivery discussions with patients.

"For the past three years that we have been monitoring maternal health service delivery in public health institutions in the country, we noted that the issue of health workers' attitudes continue to come up on top of the list amongst grievances presented by patients," said Dube.

She said some of the patients never managed to get recourse or closure to their complaints despite bringing them to the attention of the respective institutions. She said to mitigate these challenges, Government must consider installing CCTVs to monitor the delivery of health services to patients.

Dube said in some instances there was loss of lives, thereby contributing to high maternal mortality rates in the country. She said as a health watchdog, they were working with various institutions in the country to identify and follow up on some of these cases in an effort to stir dialogue between patients and institutions.

"Some women would have lost their newly born babies and to them negligence or health workers attitudes would have contributed to their loss.

"These kind of engagements will not only bring closure to their cases but would also correct any anomaly that might have taken place during the process within the institution itself," said Dube.

Most of the women who spoke at the summit concurred that the process of bringing life needed support even from the health workers. They said in some cases lives were lost due to negligence and slow pace in attending to emergency situations. One of the adolescent mothers who attended the summit chronicled how she had lost her third child at one of the central hospitals in Harare.

She said despite her arriving at the institution as early as 8 am and having been placed on the schedule for emergency caesarean section, she was given her baby already dead around 6 pm.

She said on inquiring what had happened to her baby, when she was feeling all movements all along, she was given two conflicting explanations.

"Initially, I was told the baby died whilst still in the womb but later on I was told the baby had died soon after birth after swallowing meconium, while in the womb.

"They said they tried to drain it, but it didn't work," said the 24-year-old mother of one who spoke on condition of anonymity.

She said after losing her baby, she also got seriously sick resulting in her being admitted for some days in the hospital. Several other adolescent mothers also shared their experiences with some also citing poor living conditions at some mother's waiting shelters.

About 100 adolescent mothers, midwives and other health workers attended the summit, which ran under the theme: "Start with the patient and leave no one behind". Ten midwives selected from different provinces of the country, including nurse aid Rutendo Chiweshe from Parirenyatwa Hospital were also honoured at the summit for their sterling efforts in providing appropriate and quality health care to expectant mothers.