Maravi

Monze hospital closes intensive care unit, specialised clinics

Monze hospital closes intensive care unit, specialised clinics
Written by Pride Bwalya in Monze and Maluba Jere in Lusaka
Sunday, June 07, 2009 3:45:38 PM

MONZE Mission Hospital has closed its intensive care unit, specialised clinics and restricted attendance to the out-patient department to emergency cases only due to the continued strike by workers. And the strike by health workers at the University Teaching Hospital has also continued, leaving patients stranded.

Meanwhile, Zambia Medical Association (ZMA) president Dr Swebby Macha has urged the Ministry of Health to be proactive in addressing health workers’ conditions of service.

Monze Mission Hospital executive director Dr John Mvula disclosed yesterday that some departments at the institution were unable to operate due to the continued strike action by workers who are pressing for improved working conditions.

Dr Mvula said apart from the theatre, specialised clinics at the hospital had been closed including the intensive care unit while the outpatient department was only attending to emergencies until further notice.

He has since appealed to the government to conclude the negotiations over conditions of service for government workers in order to ensure that hospitals in the country were spared from the ongoing strike.

Dr Mvula said workers at the hospital had been on strike for almost two weeks and only a few who might have taken Christian values seriously by virtue of the institution being a missionary hospital were reporting for work.

He said due to a reduced number of staff reporting for work, the hospital management had resorted to handling emergence operations only and cancelled all elective cases which were not life threatening.

Dr Mvula said the government must address the issue immediately because health institutions were dealing with human life and if the situation continued, a number of lives could be lost.

He added that routine laboratory and X-ray investigations had also been suspended while only a few midwife nurses were attending to deliveries at the labour ward.

Dr Mvula said all this had resulted into unusual operations of the hospital as pressure of work kept on mounting on the few that had been reporting for work.

He said the situation was so critical because Monze Mission Hospital did not only attend to the Monze community but also people from other parts of the country.

Dr Mvula said volunteers from within the Monze community and the church were helping to maintain the surroundings of the hospital.

And UTH public relations manager Pauline Mbangweta said yesterday that the strike by health workers at the institution had persisted and hoped the problem could be resolved soon.

She said the health workers at the institution were only attending to emergency cases.

“The situation hasn’t changed and we are only dealing with emergencies,” said Mbangweta. “But all life saving areas are covered. We can only hope the workers could return to work so we can avoid losing lives.”

Health minister Kapembwa Simbao has appealed to striking nurses to resume work as the government continued negotiating with their union leaders.

The striking nurses are demanding for a K1.5 million salary increment across the board.

And in an interview yesterday, Dr Macha said health workers were a cornerstone of a healthy delivery system in any part of the world hence the need for their conditions of service to be addressed.

He said the strike action by health workers that had paralysed operations at health institutions in the country was unfortunate, saying it had put the lives of patients at risk.

“We would like to see a situation where all operations are normalised because our primary concern is to save life,” Dr Macha said.

He has appealed to both the government and the negotiating teams to resolve the standoff and prevent further lives from being lost.

“As the ZMA, we are doing everything possible to resolve the standoff. We are appealing to both parties to find common grounds to avoid the further loss of lives,” said Dr Macha. “Health workers are a cornerstone of every health delivery system, let us value and return them.”

Labels: HEALTHCARE, MONZE

posted by MrK @ 2:49 PM