EDITORIAL COMMENT: Urgently address Ekusileni Medical Centre issue

The $4 million Ekusileni Medical Centre in Bulawayo which was built in 2000, is still lying idle due to many challenges. The specialist medical centre whose establishment was initiated by the late Vice President, Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo, was funded by the National Social Security Authority (NSSA). The 200-bed hospital briefly operated in 2004 but was forced to close due to lack of working capital.

Many dates have been given for the re-opening of this state-of-the-art medical facility which is the brainchild of Dr Nkomo but there are no indications it will open soon. The late Vice President, who died in 1999, was not happy that the country did not have a health facility that provided specialist healthcare services despite the fact that it had the required specialists.

This is forcing Zimbabweans to seek such services outside the country and the costs in most cases are very prohibitive. The continued closure of Ekusileni is therefore a cause for concern. The failure by the Zimbabwe Health Care Trust (ZHCT) to re-open Ekusileni prompted Cabinet to resolve that the government should take over the institution.

The move is, however, being resisted by the trust which argues that the government is largely to blame for the delay in re-opening the hospital. The hospital’s interim managing director, Rodney Dangarembizi said equipment and drugs worth more than $5 million meant for operationalisation of the hospital were stuck at the Harare International Airport awaiting a duty waiver since February this year.

The hospital has been declared a national project because of the specialist nature of its services hence its eligibility to benefit from government support such as duty waiver on equipment and drugs. Dangarembizi said the government was supposed to facilitate the release of duty free certificates to enable them to bring the required equipment and drugs for the hospital so that it can open its doors to the public.

He said the hospital management engaged all the relevant government departments in its bid to have the duty free certificates released but to no avail. Dangarembizi said the government was therefore to blame for the delay in opening the hospital. He called on Cabinet to reverse its decision directing the government to take over the hospital saying the move was a clear defiance of the company’s constitutional rights.

We have said it before that Zimbabweans and the people of Bulawayo in particular have been anxiously waiting for the re-opening of this specialist hospital. We want at this juncture to implore the government to, without delay, resolve the issue of the duty free certificates so that the hospital can open as soon as possible.

It is important for the government and the hospital trust to engage each other so that an amicable solution can be found. The hospital was built using public funds and therefore people should start enjoying the benefits of their investment.

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