Ekusileni recruits staff, reopening imminent

News
EKUSILENI Medical Centre in Bulawayo has started recruiting ahead of its reopening sometime this year.

EKUSILENI Medical Centre in Bulawayo has started recruiting ahead of its reopening sometime this year.

BY NQOBILE BHEBHE

The hospital, a brainchild of late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo, was closed down in 2004 shortly after opening its doors.

Phodiso Holdings Limited, a South African healthcare firm, will run the specialist facility.

According to a adverts flighted at the weekend, the hospital is seeking unit managers for paediatrics ward, surgery ward, theatre, nurses, nurses’ aides, pharmacists, a human resources officer and receptionists, among others.

The institution will have 23 departments and is expected to absorb scores of nurses and doctors who graduated from Mpilo Central Hospital, United Bulawayo Hospitals and the National University of Science and Technology’s medical school.

In September last year, the hospital underwent renovations due to the damage on infrastructure caused by termites.

Some hall partitions were knocked down, drainage works attended to and walls were repainted.

The hospital was closed after it was discovered that equipment worth millions of dollars acquired by the Zimbabwean Health Care Trust (ZHCT) was obsolete.

The upmarket 369-bed hospital facility was built with funding from the National Social Security Authority (NSSA).

Ekusileni was a joint venture between ZHCT and Netcare, a South African group that provides private healthcare in both South Africa and the United Kingdom.

A super structure development fund was set up which saw NSSA, ZHCT and the Mining Industry Pension Fund partnering as the super structure developers.

However, MIPF later pulled out of the project and ZHCT failed to contribute towards the centre construction, leaving NSSA to develop it on its own and become the sole owner of the property.