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Thandeka Moyo-Ndlovu, Health Reporter
EKUSILENI Health Centre will start recruiting healthcare workers next week as efforts to reopen the hospital that has been designated as a Covid-19 centre gathers momentum.

The hospital is one of the four designated health centres in Bulawayo that will cater for serious Covid-19 cases.

Both Thorngrove Infectious Diseases Hospital and Bartley Memorial Block within the United Bulawayo Hospitals are not yet open as renovations are under way.

Earlier this week, Cabinet resolved that an agreement be signed between Government and Mater Dei Hospital for the health institution to admit critical Covid-19 patients at no cost to the patient.

Recently, Cabinet also approved that Ekusileni be transformed into a specialist teaching research hospital under the National University of Science and Technology (Nust).

Authorities say renovations at Ekusileni are more than 50 percent complete and it will soon be ready to admit Covid-19 patients.

In an interview yesterday, acting Ekusileni chief executive officer Dr Absalom Dube said there was a skeletal staff already at the institution and they were going to recruit about 95 more health workers next week.

He said Government had lifted the recruitment freeze for the hospital.

“We’re doing our level best to complete renovations and I can safely say we are now more that 50 percent complete. We already have a skeletal staff and we are going to recruit as we have 95 vacant posts which include nurses and doctors,” said Dr Dube.

According to him, some of the nurses who will attend to Covid-19 patients will come from the United Bulawayo Hospitals.

“In terms of renovations, much work has been done and we are waiting for the release of funds from Treasury to complete the remaining work. We hope the money will be released in the next few days,” said Dr Dube.

He said he did not know when exactly the institution will open its doors to Covid-19 patients but it will be soon.

Dr Dube also said he could not comment on projections made earlier that the institution was going to reopen by end of June.

“We have done partitions for our wards, the sluice rooms have been set up and we continue doing some renovations to prepare the theatre. We have even used vinyl floors which are easy to clean and we now have an ambulance washing bay,” he said.

Dr Dube said most of the work had been done and the remaining infrastructural work is what is awaiting funding from Treasury.

“We were expecting some funding from Treasury this week so that we finish the renovations. We remain hopeful that the money will come soon so that we can start admitting patients,” he said.

Ekusileni which was built in 2001 as a specialist hospital, is the brainchild of Father Zimbabwe, the late Vice President Dr Joshua Nkomo who pushed for the construction of the hospital after realising the country did not have one despite having specialist doctors.-@thamamoe