Health ministry moves UTH theatre equipment to Chawama hospital

Health ministry moves UTH theatre equipment to Chawama hospital
By Chibaula Silwamba
Sun 19 Sep. 2010, 04:00 CAT

MINISTER of Health Kapembwa Simbao has said that excess theatre equipment at the University Teaching Hospital has been taken to Chawama and Kanyama hospitals.

Responding to concerns that the government had deprived UTH of theatre equipment and taken it to newly upgraded Chawama clinic now hospital to gain political mileage, Simbao said the government had refurbished UTH theatres and installed new equipment.

“If you go to UTH now, you are going to see that we have refurbished theatres and phase three theatres that are still being refurbished. So UTH has excess theatre equipment,” Simbao explained.

“So we have moved the theatre equipment, some of it old, some of it new, we are going to equip two hospitals - Chawama and Kanyama - using the excess equipment from UTH. It’s not that we have taken equipment from UTH; this is a plan which was there a long time ago.”

He said the government was now looking for money to buy theatre equipment for three other clinics which are due to be upgraded in Lusaka.

“We said, ‘we shall start with Chawama and Kanyama because we already have equipment’. Then in the time we are waiting to see how these hospitals will work, it will give us enough time to buy the equipment for the other three theatres,” explained Simbao. “So we haven’t taken away theatre equipment from UTH and leave it without equipment.”


Some members of the UTH management, who sought anonymity, disclosed that the theatre machine at Chawama hospital, which President Rupiah Banda commissioned on Wednesday, was picked from UTH.

“I think President Banda and the MMD government have gone too far. What they have done is unacceptable. We thought that they were going to buy new equipment for Chawama clinic but they have not, and what they have done is to get the theatre machine from UTH. What nonsense? They were supposed to buy the equipment for the clinic,” a senior official said.

“We are not happy about this. Where have they taken the money they were supposed to use to buy new equipment for Chawama hospital? This is what we want to know.”