Various hospitals in Bulawayo have urged the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) to enhance service delivery within the healthcare institutions.
This plea emerged during the Mayor’s end-of-year annual visit to several hospitals in the city.
The Mayor Councillor David Coltart in the company of BCC Corporate Communications Manager Nesisa Mpofu, Director Health Sevices Dr Edwin Sibanda Mzingwane and Councillor Ntombizodwa Khumalo toured Ingutsheni, Materdei, Mpilo and Cure Hospitals
The Programs Manager from Cure Children’s Hospital of Zimbabwe, Martin Chipimo appealed for traffic lights along the road leading to the hospital to curb accidents.
“We have had a zebra crossing that was put there and that was okay but if we look at the speed at which cars move on the main road, we need traffic lights. We had requested speed humps, but we were advised that it’s a main road,” said Chipimo.
Meanwhile, the Principal Nursing Officer at Mpilo Hospital, Phineas Sithole said the referral faces intermittent water challenges.
Sithole said they also have a challenge of refuse collection.
“We also have another problem, refuse collection, we have accumulating garbage on the other side. They used to collect nearly every day but now it’s twice a week or once a week,” he said.
Sithole also requested the local authority to spray breeding spaces for mosquitoes.
Another challenge the hospital faced was that of stray dogs which were causing havoc in the hospital.
Responding to the matter, Dr Edwin Sibanda Mzingwane said the local authority has not been able to do a tie-up order for stray dogs as the city has been in an election mode.
“For dogs, we tend to deal with SPCA but because we have been perpetually in an election mode, it has not been palatable for us to do what we call tie-up order. We last had a tie-up order three years ago. Generally, city wide we have many stray dogs,” he said.
Meanwhile, Bulawayo Mayor David Coltart said the local authority needed to get an understanding of the challenges faced by health institutions in the city.
“To get an understanding of health institutions in the city, obviously we don’t control them but we needed to find out what the problems are and we needed to understand what the city can do to assist. We started at Engutsheni, Materdei, Cure Zimbabwe and we ended up at Mpilo Hospital. Ingutsheni was very worrying, the exception ward, the Khumalo ward which as of today has 159 patients did not have any water and no anti-psychotic drugs and they face a real catastrophe, so my staff and I need to look at what we can do to deliver water, to make sure that they have water and to raise the plight of that hospital and take it up,” he said.
“Materdei is very encouraging because they are building a new facility to a hospital as an inspiration and Mpilo is doing remarkably well in the circumstances but they also raised issues for example water delivery and refuse collection.”
