Harare does not have district hospitals that offer secondary health care facilities and the development has left residents with little choice but to depend on primary care clinics.
This month, the City of Harare Health Services Director, Prosper Chonzi, revealed at a meeting organised by the Community Working Group on Health, that the local authority was working on plans to turn two clinics into district hospitals.
In an interview with The Zimbabwean, the head of the Health Services Department at Harare City Council, Dr. Stanley Mungofa, admitted that standards at most council run clinics in Harare were pathetic.
He admitted that some of the clinics went without electricity for long periods of time, as they did not have generators. At night, most of the clinics are forced to resort to candles.
Mungofa was, however, quick to distance the City of Harare from the mess at the local clinics and blamed the fall in standards to “sanctions”.
“With these sanctions, it is a luxury to have a generator at a council clinic. The fact that we are managing to provide candles shows that we are trying in the most difficult of circumstances. The situation in the smaller clinics might be bad but as for our Polyclinics, we have tried our best to make sure they have electricity all the time by supplying generators,” said Mungofa.
He denied claims by residents that staffing levels were low. “Do they want us to put more nurses and doctors when there are no vacancies? No organisation has staffing levels like us,” said Mungofa.
Contrary to his claims, the Harare Residents Trust, an organisation which represents the interests of Harare residents said staff shortages at council clinics had compromised the health centres’ ability to provide quality health care to patients.
Speaking to The Zimbabwean, HRT director, Precious Shumba, said: “Services at most council health centres leave a lot to be desired.”
Post published in: News