HEALTH and Child Care minister David Parirenyatwa has indicated that Mpilo Central Hospital would soon have a new board to run the affairs of the institution and relieve pressure from chief executive officer Lawrence Mantiziba.
CHIEF REPORTER The hospital has been running without a board for almost a year.
Parirenyatwa revealed this while speaking during Mpilo’s donor conference last week held under the theme “Towards being a centre of excellence in healthcare provision”.
“Mpilo board would be in place soon and it would be in a few weeks. I have been waiting for this historic occasion (donor conference) to make an announcement. The board has to relieve pressure from Mantiziba and his staff,” said Parirenyatwa.
He expressed concern over the lack of specialists at hospitals in Bulawayo.
Mantiziba said between 1999 and 2013, 4 988 612 out-patients and 912 548 patients where attended to while from 1999 to date, Mpilo performed 42 533 caesarean operations and handled 189 277 live births.
Mantiziba, however, said there had been a steady decline in radiotherapy patients from Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia from an average of 17 in 1996 to just one in 2002.
Giving an update of refurbishment at the hospital, Mantiziba said the $6 million radiotherapy unit was now 75% complete and the $86 500 computerisation project was complete.
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Sixteen wards are in bad shape and the level of patient care in most wards was compromised as the conditions were below standard.
Mantiziba said the hospital’s theatres faced collapse with only four out of 10 working fairly. Of the hospital’s seven elevators commissioned in 1957, only one is working, albeit with constant breakdowns.
The hospital needs at least $15 million for rehabilitation and funds raised during the donor conference would be channelled towards hospital infrastructure, plant and equipment rehabilitation.
