By NATION REPORTER
GOVERNMENT should prioritise the procurement of reagents used in full blood count testing which have apparently run out at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH), newly appointed PF Member of the Central Committee Dr Canisius Banda has said.
Dr Banda said that it was a shame that the country’s biggest hospital had run out of such important components needed to conduct a full blood count.
He said that this was a reliable indicator of failure of governance because the mandate of acquiring the reagents was in President Hakainde Hichilema’s hands.
Dr Banda said that it was not like reagents were scarce because other private health facilities near UTH had the commodity.
“Health security is key in the wellbeing of citizens and that is why governments invest in health but for UTH to run out of reagents means they may not be able to make proper diagnostics,” he said.
He said that just last year before the 12th of August the same tests were being conducted but that the situation had deteriorated.
Dr Banda said that the current government needed to pull up their socks and ensure that they restocked the UTH with these essentials.
He said it would have been acceptable if the hospital ran out for a day or two but not a whole two weeks because that was now a crisis.
“It all started with drugs for months, health facilities in Zambia have not had drugs. As if this was not bad enough, now it is reagents. Soon we might not have patients as they might all die. Citizens have been fixed. If at all you were looking for it, this now is a clear sign of failure by Mr Hichilema. Even things which were already fixed are now falling apart. The fixer has become the destroyer. Lies kill,” he said.
Meanwhile Democratic Party (DP) president Harry Kalaba said that the problem was that the UPND government was politicising the matter.
He said people’s lives were at stake but that they did not want to consider that as they were busy politicking.
“It’s said that they are not being realistic but playing politics at the expense of millions of Zambians who are in dire need of quality health care,” he said.
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