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Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu, Chronicle Reporter
RURAL folk in Matabeleland South Province have appealed for resumption of doctors’ visits to rural health centres as people have to travel long distances to hospitals in order to get services.

Doctors used to conduct scheduled visits to rural clinics in a bid to improve access to health care services for the rural folk. These visits were disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic as most resources such as vehicles and medical personnel had to be channeled towards fighting the pandemic.

Matabeleland South Province has 138 registered health facilities. 10 of these are hospitals which are operating with resident doctors while the rest are clinics and rural hospitals that operating without doctors.

Visits by doctors to rural clinics have helped ease the burden for villagers who have to travel long distances to reach hospitals. In some areas villagers have to travel over 100 kilometres in order to get to hospitals.

Ms Ntombifuthi Nkomo from Nhwali area in Gwanda said visits by doctors to their clinic have been really helpful. She said she has to constantly take her 80-year-old father who is diabetic to the hospital for check-ups.

Ms Nkomo said she used to take advantage of visits by the doctors to seek medical help for her father.

“With the visits by doctors to our clinic suspended I now have to take my father to Gwanda Provincial Hospital for medical check-ups. It means that I have to fork out transport money for three people as I also have to travel with my nephew in order to help me with my father. My father is now old and his condition requires him to visit the hospital frequently. Sometimes I take him for check-ups once every two weeks depending on the review date that he would have been given,” she said.

Ms Nkomo said it was extremely difficult for her to take her father to hospital during the time intercity travel was banned.

Garanyemba Clinic health centre committee chairperson, Mr Gezani Dube said a number of people visit the clinic with conditions that require them to be attended by doctors. He said other patients that get referred to Gwanda Provincial Hospital to see a doctor go back home and do not visit the hospital because of financial constraints.

Mr Dube said doctors used to visit the clinic occasionally. He said sometimes specialists would visit the clinic, though it was not common.

“The clinic deals with patients with a wide variety of problems. Some of them will be people with chronic illnesses, some would have suffered broken limbs, some have conditions that can’t be diagnosed by nurses. The visits by doctors to the clinic really helped people a lot, though they were conducted once in a while. Instead of travelling to Gwanda for their check ups people would just come to the clinic,” he said.

Garanyemba village head, Mr Mike Nyathi said the villagers used to get notifications of the doctor’s visit. He said people would then turn out in large numbers at the clinic to be attended by the doctor. Mr Nyathi said there was also a need for specialists to conduct scheduled visits to rural clinics.

Headman Matenga in Mangwe District said there was a need for Government to work with partners to ensure that villagers could easily access good health care services. He said Government has done a lot to ensure that more clinics are built in rural areas. He said there was also a need for Government to start working on constructing rural hospitals that could accommodate doctors.

Matabeleland South Provincial Medical Director (PMD) Dr Rudo Chikodzore said doctors could not conduct visits to rural clinics because of limited resources.

“Since the outbreak of the pandemic doctors’ visits to rural clinics have been affected due to limited resources. We have to channel the few resources that we have like vehicles and fuel towards fighting the pandemic. The same vehicles that the doctors have to use for outreach programmes are the same vehicles that we have to use for programmes such as Covid-19 follow ups, distribution of vaccines among others. During the Covid-19 period some districts tried to resume these scheduled visits but they stopped because of resource constraints,” she said.

Dr Chikodzore said shortage of doctors in the province was also affecting the programme.–@DubeMatutu