Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa
Whinsley Masara, Chronicle Reporter
THE Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa, has said there should never be power cuts at any health facility as this contributes to loss of lives.
The Minister said this after discovering that there was no electricity at Nathisa clinic in Matobo District during a visit on Thursday.
Nurses there told Dr Parirenyatwa that they last had electricity two years ago due to a technical fault.
“No health facility should experience a power cut or fall short of power for any reason at any time. Imagine a situation when a surgeon is doing an operation at night and suddenly power goes off. Even the President supported me and said no hospital or clinic should be affected by load shedding,” he said.
The Minister said if there is a power cut for any reason, it should be reported immediately to authorities to have the problem rectified as a matter of urgency.
Nathisa clinic Sister in Charge, Sifelumuzi Ndlovu, said it was taking long for ZESA to restore power at the health institution.
She said the clinic purchased solar lamps using money from the Health Transition Fund (HTF), but they still encountered challenges in winter as the lamps do not last for the whole night.
This posed serious challenges especially when attending to deliveries at night, she added.
In response, Dr Parirenyatwa said lack of electricity at institutions makes the work of health practitioners difficult.
“Our target as the Ministry is that health centres do 70 percent prevention and 30 percent of curing but I believe when there is no power, staff end up doing a lot of work which could have been avoided. The saying ‘prevention is better than cure’ will always be true, prevention is cheaper than curing,” he said.