EDITORIAL COMMENT: Health delivery system recovery on track

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WE hail two landmark deals unveiled on Wednesday to accelerate the recovery of the country’s health delivery system. Mpilo Central Hospital’s Memorandum of Understanding with three Indian hospitals that will enable the institution to conduct specialist diagnostic operations including transplants and government’s announcement of an $89 million deal with China to retool the country’s major hospitals will go a long way in getting our health sector back on track.

The Indian hospitals namely Artemris, Fortis and Mendanta also signed an MoU with the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) that will see senior Indian doctors lecturing at its medical school while the China deal will see major surgical operations like open heart surgery and kidney transplants being conducted locally after government procured state of the art theatre equipment under a loan facility with the Eximbank of China.

According to our Harare Bureau, the deal provides for the re-tooling of hospitals and acquisition of essential equipment to address various challenges. Part of the equipment has since been installed at major hospitals and its use will result in patients not being referred to other countries for such operations. The theatre equipment already in the country includes theatre tables, high definition theatre lights and anaesthetic machines which have since been installed at Parirenyatwa, Harare, Chitungwiza, Mpilo and the United Bulawayo Hospitals —the country’s largest referral centres. Other equipment procured under the loan includes CT scan machines, Magnetic Resonance Imaging Machines, dialysis machines and their consumables, ultrasound machines, oxygen generating machines and baby incubators.

The acquisition of the equipment will also see provincial hospitals beginning to offer dialysis and cancer diagnosis. Hailing the MoU signed in Bulawayo on Wednesday, Mpilo chief executive officer Dr Lawrence Mantiziba said the agreement was going to enhance service delivery at the hospital, which is saddled with many challenges, chief among them, financial constraints and a serious manpower shortage.

“Ladies and gentlemen under this arrangement the three Indian consortium hospitals that operate under the flagship of Medi Consultants shall avail Mpilo Central Hospital a whole range of specialist services from diagnostic to the most complex transplants,” said Dr Mantiziba.

“Furthermore, senior Indian doctors would be coming in as professors at the National University of Science and Technology Medical School.”
On the China deal, Principal Director, curative services, in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Christopher Tapfumaneyi, said government last procured equipment for public institutions in 1958 and they were in the process of negotiating with different categories of specialist surgeons on the possibility of conducting major operations such as open heart surgery and kidney transplants.

We applaud the two deals as they represent a milestone in the country’s health care delivery system. What is even more exciting is that the deals come hot on the heels of the successful separation of conjoined twins Tapiwanashe and Kupakwashe Chitiyo at Harare Hospital by a group of local surgeons.

Mpilo will particularly benefit from the MoU as it continues in its quest to regain its status as a centre of excellence in health care services in the southern region. It will now be able to conduct the most complex diagnostic and transplant surgeries. It will be transformed into a tele-medical centre with Indian hospitals for routine tele-radiology, tele-pathology, online surgery boards, online tumour boards and therapy boards. This will certainly help in treating such conditions as cancer which are costly and require specialist equipment.

Dialysis patients will also heave a sigh of relief as their condition requires sophisticated equipment.
We hope Mpilo will return to its glory days when it was the envy of many in terms of health delivery. In fact, we challenge the institution to seize the opportunity and aim to develop medical facilities to the point of surpassing what it was before.

The brain drain in the health sector can be reversed and confidence restored in local health institutions and we are confident that with the pace at which re-tooling is taking place, this can be achieved.

We urge government to complement its capacitation programme with a serious re-look at the conditions of service of health care givers. We believe this sector requires special attention and incentives need to be worked out to lure back health professionals.

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