Ekusileni Hospital re-opening imminent Ekusileni Hospital

Pamela Shumba Senior Reporter

THE long awaited re-opening of Ekusileni Medical Centre appears imminent as a high powered delegation led by Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko meets in Bulawayo today to decide on the opening date.

Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister, Prisca Mupfumira yesterday said the ministry had concluded its consultations with a South African company that had been engaged to re-equip and run the medical facility.

She said today’s meeting is meant to wind up the preparations and come up with a date to finally re-open the hospital.

“We identified a South African company that will re-equip and run the hospital and we’ve been working flat out to finalise the strategies leading to the re-opening of the Ekusileni Medical Centre.

“All the major players will meet at the hospital in Bulawayo to conclude the plans and decide when the facility can be officially opened. VP Mphoko will chair the meeting which will be attended by officials from my ministry, the Health Care Trust, the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) and the local leadership,” said Mupfumira.

She assured the Bulawayo community that the hospital would soon be opened, saying everything was in place.

“We’ve been putting all the necessary pressure to make sure that this beautiful facility is put to use. It’s important for us to revive this hospital. This will make the late Vice President Dr Joshua Nkomo’s dream come true,” said Mupfumira.

She said efforts to re-open the medical centre had been hitting a brickwall for the past 10 years due to various challenges.

In February, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care ordered the government to re-open the hospital by March, saying the facility was slowly crumbling.

The chairperson of the committee Dr Ruth Labode told Parliament: “Ekusileni Medical Centre is falling apart without being used yet pensioners’ monies were used to construct this hospital.”

Ekusileni Hospital

Ekusileni Hospital

As part of its recommendations, the committee said: “The Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa, must use powers vested in his office to ensure that Ekusileni Medical Centre opens by March this year.”

Ekusileni, which was constructed by NSSA, is a brain-child of the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo. The health facility has been lying idle since 2004 after it was shut down shortly after opening its doors.

The institution is set to run 23 departments with 157 beds, with the potential to increase its capacity to 265. The hospital is also set to absorb scores of nurses and doctors who graduated from Mpilo Central Hospital, United Bulawayo Hospitals and the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) medical school.

The hospital briefly opened in 2004 but was promptly closed after it was discovered that equipment worth millions of dollars acquired by the institute was now obsolete.

It was built in 2001 as a specialist hospital through the inspiration of the late Dr Nkomo after a realisation that there was a need for such medical facilities in the city.

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