Maravi

Where are the patients who were on the floor?

Where are the patients who were on the floor?
By The Post
Thu 09 Sep. 2010, 04:00 CAT

It is said that it is better to “mask no difficulties nor claim any easy victories”. It is better to admit failure than to mask it. Before we know what is happening, the people will find out what the truth is. We are saying this because of what happened at the University Teaching Hospital yesterday.

The acting Minister of Health Dr Brian Chituwo went on a visit of the University Teaching Hospital which seemed calculated to show that what we have written about that hospital may not be true. It seems that from the time that we showed those pictures of people lying around in pathetic surroundings, the University Teaching Hospital management decided to move those people.

That is not a bad thing, assuming those people have been moved to better facilities and are receiving the kind of medical care that their conditions require. What is unacceptable is the attempt to mask the crisis that engulfs our country’s medical sector and particularly the University Teaching Hospital. It is good for a minister such as Chituwo to visit the hospital and to get a first-hand impression of what is actually happening.

This is not about politics, this is about the lives of the people that have elected them to provide the kind of service that the University Teaching Hospital is supposed to provide. Pretending that the University Teaching Hospital does not have problems of congestion and inadequate medical care will not change the truth on the ground.
It is wrong for a public institution to try and address a serious crisis using cheap public relations gimmicks.

It is clear that since the publication of those pictures, people have scampered to move patients around and one hopes that no atrocities were committed in the process. It is nonsensical for people to do this kind of thing instead of addressing the underlying problem.

It is a well known fact that the University Teaching Hospital is not adequately equipped. And it is not uncommon for people to sleep on the floor. It is also not uncommon for the place to stink due to lack of cleaning materials and disinfectants necessary to keep the hospital clean.

These are not things that we are manufacturing. These are things that people who use the hospital or even just visit relatives who use the hospital will know very well. It is shameful for the government to try and mask this problem in any way. The management at the University Teaching Hospital should also not be allowed to mask this problem. Can anyone say that the University Teaching Hospital is functioning the way it is supposed to?

We say this because it is clear that the reason the press were called was to give an impression that all was well at the University Teaching Hospital. The management ensured that people had been moved which is even a more serious indictment of the institution. Why were people not moved before we published the information that showed the pathetic conditions under which our people were being kept?

The acting managing director of the hospital wants to blame the congestion on nurses who he claims were not transferring people to admission wards. What kind of nonsense is this? Is he telling us that the management of the hospital did not know that people were sleeping on the floor? Is he telling us that the management are not supposed to know when such things are going on? Who is managing the University Teaching Hospital then?

This is what happens when there is a total failure of leadership. Rupiah Banda and his government are not truly concerned about what is going on in our hospitals. And because of that, they either do not know and worse still, they do not care to know what is going on in these places.

If they were interested, the management would know that they would not get away with that kind of sloppy behaviour. But more importantly, if they cared, they would make sure that the hospitals were adequately resourced.

But they know that when they are sick, an air ambulance will whisk them away to some five-star hospital arrangements in South Africa. There is no real concern for the health of the whole nation. As for the projects to build hospitals and other facilities, there is no doubt that those works are engulfed in massive corruption.

And when they are finished, so much over-expenditure would have happened. This or that commission would have been paid to someone. This is the interest that the government has in these facilities. This is the same interest that is there in the procurement of mobile hospitals.

There is need for our leaders to be compassionate towards our people and their suffering. If they are going to build hospitals, let them make appropriate structures which cost the nation reasonably.

These projects should not be opportunities for corruption. In that same spirit, let them find the resources to improve hospitals that already exist so that our people don’t have to buy wheelbarrows with which to carry their sick, chasing Rupiah’s mobile hospital wherever it may be anchored for the time being. People like Chituwo are deliberately missing the point that our people are making about the nonsense that Rupiah’s mobile hospitals are.

No one can deny that the hospital infrastructure around the country has collapsed or tottering on the brink of collapse. Even major hospitals like the University Teaching Hospital, Ndola Central Hospital, Kitwe Central Hospital, Livingstone General Hospital and others are in a sorry state of disrepair.

Against that background, does it make sense for people to fail to provide resources for the University Teaching Hospital to operate properly and yet be prepared to bring container hospitals which they are calling mobile hospitals? The crisis at the University Teaching Hospital is merely symptomatic of what is going on in the whole medical sector.

No amount of public relations will change that situation. Rupiah and his friends should stop the corruption that has denied our people medical services for a long time and start addressing the systemic malaise that has crippled the health sector. We need to be able to start somewhere. And the University Teaching Hospital is not a bad place to start from.

Chasing people from the floors where they were sleeping at University Teaching Hospital has not dealt with the problem that our country has with medical care. The crisis of the medical sector will not be sorted out by a few Rupiah Banda-driven tenders. These problems require real leadership; selfless leadership that goes to the root of the problem.

It is disappointing that the only solution that the government could find to the problem of congestion at the University Teaching Hospital seems to have been chasing some patients and probably hiding some of them away from public view. We need to look at this problem of healthcare honestly and sincerely.

It is only when we do that that we can hope to find genuine solutions. Maybe the first place where we should expect some honesty is on the question of where those patients who were sleeping on the floor have gone. The government needs to tell us.

Labels: BRIAN CHITUWO, HEALTHCARE, STUPIDITY

posted by MrK @ 7:29 AM