Minister checks Beitbridge border’s corona readiness Dr Obadiah Moyo

Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau

THE Government will soon send a team to assess operational challenges at the Beitbridge District Hospital in preparation for its modernisation into a referral hospital.

This was said by Health and Child Care Minister, Dr Obadiah Moyo during a visit to Beitbridge Border Post on Friday, where he checked port authorities’ capacity to deal with Coronavirus (COVID-19).

The Minister said he had noted some of the challenges raised by stakeholders over the hospital’s state of affairs.

“I have noted some of your concerns and will send a team to assess the state of affairs and make recommendations on which areas to improve.

“The hospital does not only serve the local communities but also the transient population

which uses the border post on daily basis,” said Dr Moyo.

He said there was need to look at staffing and resource allocations to Beitbridge.

The minister said the hospital must be modernised with the urgency it deserves considering the workload at hand.

He said the Government was committed to providing standard health services to all Zimbabweans.

“We are having at least 13 000 people daily crossing the border off peak and 34 000 at peak and that makes it critical to move with speed to capacitate the hospital which is one of the key facilities for Zimbabwe,” said Dr Moyo.

Speaking during the same tour, Matabeleland South’s Minister for Provincial Affairs Cde Abednico Ncube said the situation at the hospital needed urgent attention.

He said it was important for Government to dedicate an electricity line for the health

institution to ensure that it was with power 24 hours a day.

Minister Ncube said the state of the mortuary and the staff shortage was also a stumbling block to service delivery.

The 140-bed facility is a referral hospital for 250 000 local residents who have to share it with a daily transit population of about 10 000 daily.

In addition, the hospital’s mortuary carries 30 bodies and, in some cases, several bodies especially those forming part of police investigations or are unidentified stay longer than 3 months.

These are usually disposed of through paupers burials following a lengthy process.

Recently, hospital management had to close the mortuary due to the power shortages induced by the current wave of electricity load shedding which has seen the health institutions and other key points in the border town going

without power for almost 18 hours daily.
There has been talk of use of a generator. However, the cost of fuel to power it is

threatening to cripple operations.
It is understood that the Registrar of Births

and Death processes between 50 and 60 burial orders monthly around Beitbridge.

A further 400 are processed for those who would have died in South Africa and those intended for burial in Beitbridge district will have to make use of private morgues locally who charge anything between R2 000 ($2 000) and R4 000 ($4 000) for mortuary services.

Additionally, the 140-bed hospital with four medical doctors and over 80 nurses plays a referral role for 17 clinics.

Though the town has been growing rapidly its facilities mainly social amenities have not been upgraded to meet the demand, living authorities having to carry on with services on compassionate and humanitarian reasons.

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