×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

‘Hospital turns into place of death’

News
Chiredzi District Hospital, the only government referral centre in the Lowveld, has become a place where patients contract diseases instead of being cured.

CHIREDZI — Chiredzi District Hospital, the only government referral centre in the Lowveld, catering for more than 250 000 people, has turned into a place of death where patients contract diseases instead of getting healed, a legislator has said.

Report by Tatenda Chitagu

Chiredzi West MP Elvis Mare (MDC-T) told NewsDay on the sidelines of a function for the donation of 158 hospital beds by Tongaat Hullet Zimbabwe recently, that standards at the hospital had fallen to alarming levels.

“There is no longer quality care as the hospital can no longer cope with demand. Apart from that, the institution is seriously ill-equipped. Patients are actually getting diseases here instead of being cured of the ones that they already have,” he said.

The hospital’s medical superintendent Paul Ngere told guests that the institution had not been renovated ever since its construction in 1968.

“A lot of equipment is now malfunctioning,” he said. “Nothing has been done to renovate or upgrade the hospital. It can no longer cope.

We are not operating well because of these problems. Yet the hospital, according to the last census, caters for more than 251 000 people, especially those from the rural areas.

“Twenty-seven rural health centres feed into Chiredzi District Hospital. So it has to be fully equipped to give quality care to the patients, instead of being a centre where we refer patients to other hospitals,” he said.

Tongaat Hullet managing director Sydney Mtsambiwa said his organization would continue to support the hospital as part of its corporate social responsibility.