HEALTH and Child Care minister David Parirenyatwa says the government is planning to build four district hospitals in Harare and Bulawayo to ease pressure on the cities’ four referral hospitals. Feluna Nleya Staff Reporter
This follows reports that the major referral hospitals — Harare, Parirenyatwa, Mpilo and United Bulawayo Hospitals — were overwhelmed by patients referred to the institutions from all parts of the country.
In a recent interview with our sister paper NewsDay, Parirenyatwa said: “We are targeting to put up two district hospitals in Harare and two district hospitals in Bulawayo so that they help in terms of decongesting the major institutions.
“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 decongest the referral hospitals.”
He added: “What we are doing for example in Harare is to look at the polyclinics and make them do much more than what they are doing now.
“We need to feed them with X-rays and laboratories in areas like Kuwadzana so that we do not have too many people coming to the referral hospitals.”
Congestion at major hospitals has often exerted pressure on resources and led to deterioration in service delivery.
