Oxygen shortage irresponsible

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:27:01 +0000

The shortage of oxygen at the University Teaching Hospital is a scandal just as has been the closure of hospices around the country.

The harrowing pictures of patients awaiting surgery and other medical procedures is not only depressing but an indictment against the priorities that this country holds.  Some people have even questioned where the US$90,000 for the national team is coming from when this government has failed to repair government and pipes at UTH resulting in loss of life due to lack of oxygen.

We completely agree with Dante Saunders that government must be held responsible for this scandal because proactive action would have saved patients the agony and suffering they have been subjected to in the absence of oxygen.

One of the most important attributes of a responsible government is to provide adequate and sound social delivery mechanisms that correspond to the wishes, interest, needs and demands of society.

As long as these demands are not met the government cannot claim to responsible and responsive to community needs hence the need for timely proactive attention to standard social delivery systems such as health and in particular the oxygen supply system at UTH.  Until recently the University Teaching hospital was afflicted by a serious water crisis which was only resolved after the president visited and gave instruction for an improvement in water reticulation. 

We had hoped that from this experience authorities would take it upon themselves to report any other emerging crisis to the appropriate authorities.  This does not seem to be the case as we continue to hear reports of overcrowding, poor service delivery and now the lack of oxygen. 

These are issues that would have been dealt with if a proactive and timey management system was employed to ensure that redundancies and other failures were always taken care of in planning and project appraisal.

MMD CIRCUS

The current circus in the MMD party is a great disservice to the aspirations of the Zambian people instead of assisting the nation develop a cohesive focused and strategic opposition self serving squabbles and pronouncement are threatening to divert and perhaps undermine the opposition.

Some of the spurious reasons advanced for schisms are totally inane bordering on the absurd.

Nevers Mumba was elected as president of MMD.  This is a fact both de jure and de facto whether or not that fraudster or not Andeleki agrees with it is neither here nor there the important thing is that all those who claim membership to the MMD should seek within themselves and together with others a path of reconciliation and reconstruction that will bring the party back to its position as a responsible opposition party.

It is understandable that having lost power the party still has to come to grips that it does not have the wherewithal to exercise influence in the community.  This will take time, 

In the same manner the Patriotic Front although in government still has to come to terms with the reality that they are now the party in power and therefore have no reason to chase and harass the opposition but instead concentrate on social delivery service to the people of Zambia. 

These are important adjustments that must be made by both parties and the diversions that we are seeing now are taking away from the process of growth and maturity.  The MMD must come to terms with itself and its ghosts which stand lurking in the sidelines to upset any effort at constructive recovery and yet recover the party must