'Current situation at Mpilo Hospital very very bad!'

I was at Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo yesterday afternoon. My business was at the eye unit which was some what already closed for the day shortly after 2pm.

With nothing more to do at the hospital I thought let me take a quick first hand experience of the situation I always hear about the hospital.

Besides the unavailability of doctors due to the very justified on going strike by the doctors, the situation at the hospital(s) is very bad, not only bad, but very very bad.

The hospital is flooded with very desperate sick people of all kind at the hands of visibly very frustrated nurses. I can not comment much on the frustrations around the remuneration of these nurses and other staff because we all know how little they are paid. I will talk about the visible frustration on them due to the lack of basic equipment to help them do their work.

To make my mission successful I decided to join a queue of patients at the casualty department. I am diebetic and hypertensive, so I schemed to have my blood sugar level and Blood Pressure checked to get that first hand experience at the hospital.  

A few  minutes after joining the queue this nurse came to me and asked if I had been assisted. Told her I just needed to have quick checks on my blood sugar level and Blood Pressure. She unfortunately took me to the front of the queue while I still wanted to sit and watch how long I was going to take in the queue and see how the other patients were being treated.

I however gave her a plus for maybe rushing me to be tested considering that these two can be emergency issues though I saw ahead of me far more sick people needing more urgent attention than me. I felt I was somehow more clinically well than almost everyone in the queue and wondered why I was fished out of the queue and taken to the front.

I was shocked when I was told that a hospital as big as Mpilo Central did not have test sticks to use on the Glucometer for testing the blood sugar level. I always carry some in my wallet so I provided one. When I provided the sticks, the next thing was that probably the ONLY machine in the department was not anywhere near the desk at the casualty department.

The nurse had to take time cutting across the area looking for that little machine which costs about $30 buying over the counter at any pharmacy. After some minutes I was asked to walk across the hospital to the Out Patient Department to do the test. Which I did but with questions in mind, what if this was a real emergency. There were no test sticks at the OPD too but I quickly provided.

I went back to the other department to continue my tests. The cuff that was used to check the BP would not fit on my arm because it was not an adult size cuff. The nurse battled to hold it and grip it to get a reading but it would deflate quickly and not give a reading. It was only after an over five minutes battle that she got a reading which was obviously bound to be incorrect because of the small cuff.

I was administered an instant dose of nifedipine and was prescribed to get some to take home from the pharmacy. No need to mention that a hospital as big as Mpilo Hospital again did not have a basic drug like nifedipine in stock at the pharmacy.

Walking to the pharmacy I bumped on two student nurses trying to move a patient on a wheelchair. I felt pity for the young ladies. The wheelchair just would not move. They were really battling and sweating to get it moving. I offered to help them at least lift up the patient in the wheelchair on to a better surface than hoping that the old thing was ever going to move.

I thought to myself, how many patients get to the hospital and fail to have their blood sugar levels checked because there are no test sticks? How many more patients get incorrect blood pressure readings because the hospital does not have the correct size cuff? How many patients are dying because there are no drugs at the pharmacy?

I didn't want to think of more complicated situations like maternity or the theatre or other real emergencies. The hospital is just an obvious opposite of its name by merely sitting and watching and not even getting involved in its processes.

In all this a few people quickly came into my mind.

What was First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa grand standing about making "unexpected" visits to the hospitals in the company of ZBC TV cameras? What did she see and what did she do about it in her first 100 days as the first lady? Now that it seems her title is an office and probably a cabinet office, so what did she do about what she saw at the hospitals? Where is she now when doctors are on strike?

What is Minister David Parirenyatwa still doing in that office when his institutions virtually have no service they are giving to the nation? How can he be sitting there getting a hefty salary, allowances and cars when hospitals are running at about