Promoting wellness for all

Sat, 06 May 2017 14:45:52 +0000

GOVERNMENT’s commitment to upgrade already existing healthy facilities and construction of Rural Health Centres across the country demonstrates a strong desire to enable everyone have easy access to quality health services.

Since the Patriotic Front (PF) government took over the reins of power, the country has witnessed an unprecedented level of infrastructure development of which the health sector is among key beneficiaries.

The construction health facilities has not been limited to any particular province. At least each province has received a fair share of this infrastructure development. For example, about 430 of the 650 Rural Health Centres earmarked for construction have so far been completed while 220 nearing completion.

Further Government has shown a clear demonstration to the cause of bringing health services as close to the communities as possible by upgrading some health facilities to Level 1 hospitals.

We observe that until August 2015, Lusaka had no Level 1 hospital, a situation which distorted the referral system and congested higher level hospitals like the University teaching and Levy Mwanawasa General Hospital.

Needless to say that the idea to upgrade health facilities is partly aimed at decongesting the two referral hospitals, thereby taking quality health services to the door step.

What this implies is that only those health conditions requiring specialised health care will be referred to referral hospitals as Level 1 hospitals will have the capacity to handle many health complications competently because they are equipped with requisite state-of-the-art equipment and human resource.

It is gratifying to note that Government with its cooperating partners has been upgrading five health centres in Lusaka District into Level 1 hospitals and so far Chipata, Matero and Chilenje health facilities are operating as such. This development entails a large population of our people will have easy access to quality health services.

For instance, Chilenje Urban Health Centre served slightly over 77 thousand residents but with the upgrade, the hospital is now poised to attend to about 350 thousand residents from across the City of Lusaka.

It must be underscored here that undertaking such expansive construction projects is not cheap but expensive. It requires mobilising financial resources and the investment Government is making into this venture is intended to have a healthy citizenry that would in turn contribute effectively to national and economic development.

Though the construction of Rural Health Centres and upgrading of existing health facilities is partly under the auspices of co-operating partners, it is obvious that the projects come at a huge cost to our national treasury.

Therefore, it is important that health workers and members of the general public guard against these infrastructures jealously. Any acts of vandalism subtracts from the good gesture and efforts our cooperating partners have made towards assisting Zambia to attain the Millennium Development Goals on health such as reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

In this vein, pilferage of medicines from hospitals by some health workers is a scourge that must be fought vigorously so that ordinary citizens are not deprived of the opportunity to access quality health from nearest health facilities.

Therefore, we urge all citizens to be patriotic at heart and partner with the Government in promoting wellness for all beyond the health week.