PROPRIETOR of a Population Services Zimbabwe (PSZ)-run Blue Star franchise clinic in Chinotimba suburb in Victoria Falls, Kurai Ngarivume, has disclosed that the health institution was operating round the clock to enable residents to get access to emergency contraceptives as part of its efforts to address the spread of HIV infections in the tourist resort town.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
Ngarivume told a visiting delegation of parliamentarians last Friday that he was concerned that the HIV prevalence rate in Victoria Falls was at 18%, a figure which was higher than the national figure of 15%.
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care visited several Population Services Zimbabwe Blue Star-run clinics in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces last week.
“We open our clinic for 24 hours to provide emergency contraceptives and provide condoms courtesy of donations by PSZ because we always want to make sure we have enough stocks as Victoria Falls is a hotspot for HIV. Throughout the night we have lots of people coming to get condoms for free,” Ngarivume said.
“We are a tourist town and we have a mobile population of truckers transporting goods from the Democratic Republic of Congo to South Africa. There is also sex tourism where we find some tourists visit the Falls and also engage in sex. There is a lot of money changing hands in Victoria Falls, as well as too much alcoholism which are risk factors for HIV. We have to fight it as a member of Blue Star.”
Apart from conducting HIV counselling, Ngarivume’s clinic, which is one of the success stories of PSZ-supported clinics, also administers other forms of family planning services like Jadelle, tubal ligation, Depo-Provera, vasectomy, intrauterine device loop, Implanon and pills.
“Females have been very receptive of the new innovations of family planning methods like Jadelle which consists of two soft rods that are placed under the skin of a woman’s upper arm for five years,” Ngarivume said. ”We were highly trained by the PSZ to insert and remove Jadelle to the extent that we even have clients from as far as South Africa.” The committee heard that Hwange Colliery Hospital was handling several cases of cervical cancer per month.
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Chairperson of the committee, Ruth Labode, hailed PSZ for introducing Blue Star programmes, saying they had actually served hospitals like Hwange Colliery from collapse.
She, however, said most of the PSZ Blue Star clinics were threatened due to failure by the government to remit subscription fees by civil servants to Public Service Medical Aid Society, resulting in the medical aid failing to pay private doctors their dues.
