Zimpapers Logo

The prevailing situation at Ingutsheni Central Hospital in Bulawayo which is said to be surviving on donations and loans cannot be allowed to continue. According to the hospital’s acting chief executive officer, Dr Naboth Chaibva, the hospital has since the beginning of the year only received $40,000 from government yet it requires about $200,000 a month.

Dr Chaibva said as a result, the institution was now surviving on donations and loans to meet the expenses of its 600 patients. The hospital which caters for patients with mental illness does not charge for its services yet it has to feed patients as well as meet other expenses such as buying drugs and other consumables as well as pay for other services.

The hospital therefore depends on funding from the government which unfortunately has not been forthcoming since the beginning of the year. According to authorities at the hospital, many of the patients should have long been discharged but their relatives are not forthcoming to collect them.

What has made the situation dire at Ingutsheni is that very few relatives of the patients are visiting and bringing them food. What this means is that unless authorities at the hospital provide the food, the patients will starve unlike patients at other health institutions that can rely on food from home.

This makes Ingutsheni hospital a special case which needs to be prioritised when it comes to disbursement of funds. Some hospitals charge for their services and can therefore use some of the money realised to buy food. The Minister of Health and Child Care Dr David Parirenyatwa recently conceded that Ingutsheni was facing critical shortages of food and medicines. He said the government was struggling to provide for the increasing number of patients at the hospital.

The government, we are cognisant, has many competing priorities and the situation is worsened by limited resources available but releasing a mere $40,000 out of a monthly budget of $200,000 is not acceptable. What is worrying is that the $40,000 is supposed to cover five months.

We have already alluded to the fact that Ingutsheni is a special case and the government should go out of its way to ensure it provides the minimum required to meet the patients’ basics such as food and drugs. At this juncture we want to commend the individuals and organisations that have been donating food and other resources to the hospital and call on others to emulate them.

Mental patients require high quality health care and this is only possible if the required resources are available. Nurses and other health staff taking care of mental patients get frustrated by shortage of resources and at the end of the day the quality of health care is compromised. Relatives of those admitted to the hospital have a critical role to play.

These patients, like other patients at other hospitals, need to be visited more often so that they feel loved. It is only when they visit them that relatives can find out what their needs are. The hospital should not be used as a dumping ground for mental patients but should instead be an institution where patients are treated and discharged to join their families.

It is disturbing to learn that many patients that are at the hospital should have long been discharged but because their relatives are not forthcoming, they are still at the hospital. It is such conduct which is worsening the situation at the hospital and as a society we need to address this urgently.