HARARE - Government has plans to build two hospitals to help reduce the pressure on the country’s referral hospitals, a Cabinet minister has said.
Health minister David Parirenyatwa said the current infrastructure has been outgrown by the 13 million population hence the need to expand it.
“We are targeting to put up two district hospitals in Harare and two district hospitals in Bulawayo so that it will help in terms of overloading institutions,” he said in a media interview recently.
Zimbabweans are currently heavily relying on struggling hospitals such as Parirenyatwa, Harare Central, United Bulawayo Hospitals and Mpilo for specialist services.
The minister also believes extending the scope of services provided at polyclinics is another quick route that will help guarantee citizens right to health.
“Some of the cases that come into the central hospitals can be treated at a district level so that is what we are looking at doing.
“At these district hospitals there shall be doctors and this will de-congest the referral hospitals,” he said.
Zimbabweans, particularly, the rural population travel long distances to seek medical attention.
The country’s low nurse-patient-ratio shows that under-staffing remains a real issue in the health sector.
Many State hospitals are operating with skeletal staff as evidenced by the number of front line nursing staff they have at any given time.
A 2013 report on the state of human resources in government hospitals by a local consulting group, Proserve, stated that major referral hospitals were running with seven specialist doctors out of the required 26 and just 1 instead of 6 pathologists was available to serve Zimbabwe.
Parirenyatwa recently told the media that his ministry was pushing for the recruitment of about 2 400 nurses to bridge the gap.