Black buckets have replaced incinerators, says Nawakwi

Black buckets have replaced incinerators, says Nawakwi
By Masuzyo Chakwe
Mon 24 May 2010, 04:01 CAT

EDITH Nawakwi has said the government should face the reality that black buckets have replaced incinerators in health institutions.

Commenting on the picture that appeared on the front page of Friday’s edition of The Post of a woman who had just been discharged from UTH maternity ward carrying a bucket, Nawakwi, who is opposition FDD president, said the government had done away with buckets without finding an alternative.

She said the staff at the clinics misled health minister Kapembwa Simbao when they briefed him.

“The buckets are used for carrying placenta, I witnessed this when I helped my worker’s wife deliver. There was no pit latrine but just a water toilet,” she said.

Nawakwi said when information minister Lt Gen Ronnie Shikapwasha called her names, he did not understand.

“The argument that some centres are not delivery centres does not hold because for as long as there is a place and it is labelled a clinic, any expectant mother will find herself there. The question is how to dispose of the waste. Let us not talk about what is not there…the buckets came in due to lack of incinerators in many areas and this is what was used for carrying placentas. Let us not go round a problem,” she said.

Nawakwi said there was need to find a lasting solution to the problem, adding that this would require the community, NGOs and the government to dig pit latrines at the clinics.

“If government says the people should not carry buckets, the poor nurses will be carrying the placentas as no nurse would chase an expectant mother. The first mid-wife on site will do what they can so it can’t be said that it is not a designated delivery centre,” she said.

Nawakwi said Simbao and the government were misled and had continued to be.

“The minister understood the problem but there is no replacement for buckets. These should be replaced with pit latrines and incinerators…men were in the forefront saying we were lying as if they have ever carried the placenta. The day I carried the baby and bucket was so gruesome and I can’t even talk about it,” she said.

Nawakwi said President Rupiah Banda was misled on the issue of the buckets.

“It is not going to help to fire or discipline staff. The solution does not lie in calling me ignorant because I’m not ignorant about child birth, I experienced it as I am a mother. Men should listen and not play with people’s lives,” said Nawakwi.

Recently Simbao banned the carrying of buckets to hospitals by expectant mothers.

However, it has continued in some health institutions including the University Teaching Hospital.