Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Mobile health services have been a success, health Minister

Share

Medical staff attending to patients at a Mobile Hospital
File: Medical staff attending to patients at a Mobile Hospital : Picture Courtesy of ZANIS

GOVERNMENT has recorded success in the operations of mobile health services, Health Minister Joseph Kasonde has said.

Dr Kasonde said the mobile health services recorded more than 100 percent increase in mobile outreach operations and another 25 percent in the number of patients being attended to through mobile hospitals.

Dr Kasonde said the mobile outreach programme attended to a total number of 34,434 patients and conducted 1,746 operations in 18 sites where 25,923 were attended to and 693 operations were conducted.

“The high number this year represented an increase of about 25% in the number of patients seen and more than 100% in the number of operations conducted compared to the same period last year,” he said.

He said the strategic focus in the health sector was to provide equitable access to quality health services with key principles being primary health care approach, good governance and leadership.

Giving an overview on the performance of the health sector during the first quarter, Dr Kasonde said in order to respond to challenges related to access of quality health in Lusaka, his ministry had demarcated the District into four zones and transformed Matero and Chilenje into Districts had advanced.

Dr Kasonde said the contractors for the upgrading of the two health centers had already been selected.

He said the upgrade of Matero and Chilenje health clinics would be completed by August next year and that K92, 760,000 had been set aside for construction while K 7,968,000 was for the procurement of medical equipment.

He said the construction of the two district hospitals was being supported by the Japanese International Corporation Agency (JICA) and selected contractors were expected to move on site next month and commence works.

He said the zoning had been done to improve on referral systems in the country as each zone would refer patients to the first level hopsital in those zones a situation which would lead to decongest the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) and Levy Mwanawasa General Hospital.

He said zone one with a population of 445,963 consisted of the Airport, Chelstone, Kaunda Square, Chainda, Kalingalinga, Mtendere, St Agness and Ng’ombe, Zone two would be Chazanga, Chipata, Mandevu, Chaisa, Matero Referral, Matero Main and George health centre with a population of 682,783 people.

Zone three had Kanyama, Makeni, Chawama and Lilayi whose population stood at 356,941 while in zone four with a population of 526,477, there was Kamwala, Railway, Civic Centre, Kabwata, Prisons, Chilenje, Bauleni and State Lodge.

Dr Kasonde said in addition, the ministry had already built five theatres in the clinics earmarked to be converted into hospitals which included Kanyama, Chipata, Chelstone apart from the already mentioned two above whilst a modern 2nd level hospital to serve Lusaka West.

10 COMMENTS

  1. Good sustainable idea by MMD and it is also good that PF carried it on. This is a good example of sustainable progress. If only we had more such examples.

  2. These pf *****s yapped so much about these hospitals. Are they not ashamed. LT please go to the archives and shame these fools.

  3. Chwechwechwechwe!!!!!!!!!!!!!Viva RB uli mwaume mwandi tepapa Lesa akufumiya insoni chashalila bambi…………tizaona mu 2016!!!!!!!!!!

  4. ITS SUSTAINABILITY THET WE TALK ABOUT. PURCHASING MOBILE HOSPITALS WAS IRRELEVANT AND A WASTE OF RESOURCES. BUT SINCE RB WAS ADAMANT, WHAT CAN PF DO? THEY HAVE TO USE THEM. GRZ FUNDS WERE SPENT. MOST OF THE CASES ATTENDED TO ARE MINOR CASES THAT CAN BE SEEN AT THE SMALLEST HEALTH POST EVEN BY A COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKER. CASES SUCH AS OLD AGE, HEADACHES, COUGH, ABDOMINAL PAIN, FEVER, CLINICAL MALARIA ARE THE MAJOR CASES COMMONLY SEEN AT MOBILE HOSPITALS. A FEW MINOR SURGERIES ARE ALSO SEEN. MAJOR SURGERIES ARE VERY RARE AND COULD VERY EASILY BE MANAGED BY STATIC REFERRAL HOSPITALS.

  5. ….it was a brilliant idea which only visionaries could appreciate at the time of inception….Those who lacked vision as usual despised the project …
    Please do not redecorate the trucks…they look beautiful with that BLUE patch….ooops, I shouldn’t have mentioned that…may end up with crazy different colour bands for each province..

  6. Sustainability…………..kikikikikikikikiki. Ala its funny how it has changed from a bad project . Show us idea kayili some good ones ba PF!!! at least the hour had some strategy whether good or bad only the people can judge. Nomba Pa bwato show us sustainable idea kayili eh?

    Uyo Uyo Uyo Uyo……………….2016 ili mupepi

Comments are closed.

Read more

Local News

Discover more from Lusaka Times-Zambia's Leading Online News Site - LusakaTimes.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading