Maravi

Something needs to be done about UTH – our hospitals!

Something needs to be done about UTH – our hospitals!
By The Post
Wed 08 Sep. 2010, 04:00 CAT

A society that does not care for its less fortunate members is doomed. The ability of a society to look after all its members is significantly dependent on the leadership it has.

We find ourselves in a vicious cycle as a nation. It is said that a society gets a leadership that it deserves. But it is also true that good leadership shapes society. The question is: what comes first?

There can be no doubt that today, we have a breed of leaders that is heartless and cold to the suffering of our people. Yes, as it is said: He who knows no weeping, when he hears weeping, he thinks it is a song. That is the kind of leadership that we have today. We have people who seem to have forgotten what suffering is. They have three square meals and more, so that they can no longer relate to the cries of our people. To them, the groans, the grunts and the agonising shrieks of pain that come from our people are a song that they have learnt to enjoy. Rupiah Banda and the conspicuous consumers that surround him have become accustomed to dismissing complaints about the suffering of our people as mere politics. This is the tragedy of leadership that we face today.

There are certain things in life that are common to all. It does not matter whether you are rich or poor, there are certain experiences that we must all have - hunger is one of them. At one point or the other, we feel hungry and have a need to eat in order to sustain our lives. No one should take another human being’s need for such basic sustenance as a matter of cheap politics that should be dismissed as if it was not important. But this is what Rupiah and his band of well-fed hangers-on are doing. They do not seem to have any sensitivity to the struggles of our people. To them, this is all fair game – politics at its best. What a shame!

Another matter that affects all of us regardless of our station in life is that at one point or another, we fall ill and require medical services. Again, this is a matter about which no one should be allowed to play cheap politics. Our people need medical services. It is clear that Rupiah does not really care whether or not our people get the kind of medical care that they need. We say this because this is a man who has vigorously fought the procurement of mobile hospitals from his Chinese friends at a colossal cost to the government, and yet a hospital which is two to three kilometres from his plush house on Independence Avenue is falling apart. The University Teaching Hospital (UTH) is in desperate need of refurbishment after many years of use. It is clear that this hospital is not able to serve our people according to its capacity because the facilities are simply rundown. This is supposed to be a premier medical facility in our country, if not in the region, and yet it is in a sorry state of dereliction.

When Rupiah was pleading for votes, these were the kinds of problems he was supposed to come and sort out when elected. But Rupiah is a careless and insensitive leader who would live happily three kilometres away from a hospital that has been reduced to a gloomy death lounge for those who cannot afford to procure private medical services or are lucky enough to be well connected and able to get government-funded medical tourism in some exclusive Cape Town hospital.

There is something wrong in a country when its rulers are comfortable jumping on a plane to go and seek medical services abroad for even the most innocuous ailments when the majority of their people cannot access basic medical care. It is wrong for Rupiah to go to Cape Town to have his knees massaged when people with more deserving medical complications cannot get even the most basic medical care in our hospitals.

And then there is the case of this thief, Frederick Chiluba, who continues to abuse our people by taking medical holidays in South Africa at their expense.

This is a man who stole from our people and, by that act, condemned many to premature graves for lack of medical facilities. Today, he is getting preferential treatment in spite of his thefts. What is worse is that Rupiah, who has anointed this thief as his political saviour, is now prepared to dare the donors who have been trying to help our people by funding some of the medical services, in defence of Chiluba. This is another tragedy of our leadership.

The stories that are coming out of the UTH should make any leader who is self-respecting and compassionate towards the people he claims to represent very sad. A real leader would feel a sense of humiliation with the state in which the UTH finds itself today. Instead of rushing to award contracts for the supply of mobile hospitals Rupiah should go and see what is happening in our hospitals. If a hospital that is just in front of his house can be so derelict, what hope is there for hospitals in more outlying areas. If Rupiah’s insistence on buying mobile hospitals had something to do with a genuine desire to provide medical services, he would have been moved by the sorry state of UTH and other hospitals. The nonsense about mobile hospitals is nothing but another ploy meant to line people’s pockets with commissions and all sorts of payments at the expense of real medical care. Assuming that this idea of mobile hospitals is workable, what will happen when the hospital has moved and somebody is sick?

These are some of the basic questions that Rupiah and his tenderpreneuring family and friends should have taken into account if they had any pity for our people. But the truth is they don’t feel anything for our people. What matters to them is that they have secured the tender and they will get the commissions.

They will now be out looking for other tenders to manipulate and make more commissions at the expense of our people. This is not the way things should be done. Even greed needs to have limits. Surely, trying to make fat commissions at the cost of our people dying needlessly should cause them to cringe and stop this nonsense. If they do not care about our people, at least let them care about their own relatives. Not all their relatives will be able to go to South Africa. Indeed, even those who could afford do find themselves in situations where evacuation is not possible. UTH may be the only place that stands between them and death. This could happen to any of us, to our children, grandchildren and other people that we care for. Surely, even for this kind of selfish reasoning, Rupiah should do something about the UTH. And while he is thinking about the UTH, let him ask his ministers of health and finance to tell him how much donor money goes into financing the provision of basic medical services to our people across the breadth and length of our country. This will help Rupiah to think very carefully the next time he feels like attacking the donors for no good reason.

Our hospitals need urgent attention. The katenga malilo type of hospitals that Rupiah wants to introduce may serve a cosmetic purpose but they will not be able to provide our people with the much needed access to good medical facilities. Something needs to be done about UTH – our hospitals!

Labels: HEALTHCARE, UTH

posted by MrK @ 5:38 PM