Luapula Province with a population of 1.2 million people, fifty years after Independence, is for the first time poised to have an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Mansa General Hospital.
Provincial Medical Officer Dr. Mathew Ng’ambi disclosed this during the First Quarter 2015 Provincial Development Coordinating Committee meeting held at Henry Courtyard Lodge in Mansa.
Dr. Ng’ambi said the Ministry of Health has embarked on setting up a four bed capacity ICU and the equipment for the facility is already in the hospital.
The Provincial Medical Officer said the rehabilitation of the structure to house the equipment is about 90 percent complete and will be ready for commissioning soon.
Dr. Ng’ambi added that there is also need to train three critical care Nurses to support the operations of the facility once commissioned.
He disclosed that the Ministry is also working on introducing a Unit to deal with serious and critical cases of malaria which were in the past being referred to Lusaka including cases of tuberculosis.
Dr. Ng’ambi said that the Ministry is introducing the Units in all the Provincial Hospitals to cut on distances of patients travelling to Lusaka and equipment for the Units will be arriving soon.
He added that once the equipment is installed it would only taking three to four hours to detect presence of tuberculosis instead of referring the samples to Lusaka for the tests.
He said most of the Health Centers in the Province reported some shortages of drugs around January because of the problems that Medical Stores in Lusaka was facing which resulted in the failure to deliver the drugs to the Province for November, December and January.
He said currently all the Health Centers had sufficient supplies of critical drugs in their pharmacies and dispensaries.
But Chembe District Commissioner Simon Lwando expressed concern at the poor working culture by the Medical personnel in the Province as patients are not attended to in time.
The District Commissioner also wondered why infrastructure for Health facilities were all coming to Mansa when even the District Hospital which was earmarked for Chembe District had been moved to Mansa where there was already a General Hospital.
Dr. Ng’ambi clarified that poor work culture in health Institutions was a concern to the Ministry and some people have been fired from their positions due to the scourge but it is a mindset issue for some health workers.
He added that sometimes it is pressure of work for some Health workers because of understaffing in most Health Institutions because sometimes the few staff are overwhelmed with demand and the workload due to inadequate staffing in the Institutions.
Dr. Ng’ambi also advised that District Commissioners should help in the supervision of Health staff in their Districts because Medical workers were answerable to the District Medical Officers in their respective Districts.
He also disclosed that the decisions of construction of District Hospitals is done in Lusaka and he might not be privy to the factors that caused the preference to Mansa getting a District Hospital before Chembe.
Dr. Ng’ambi further disclosed that Chembe has been given four Health Posts from the 64 that has been given to Luapula Province.
He revealed that Luapula was the leading Province in cases of malaria as currently it stood at 400 cases per 1,000 patients tested though scenarios could differ from District to District as Lunga, Milenge, Nchelenge and Chienge have high prevalence rate of malaria cases.
Dr. Ng’ambi said so far 1,2 million mosquito nets have been distributed to Health Centers in controlling malaria occurrences in the Province.
Let’s just DO & not talk! An ICU in Liverpool is long overdue. We’ve lost too many people here..
This move is commendable. Twapapata leteni ubuyantanshi kwesu
Now this is why niggers are niggers. how can we have an ICU 50 years after independence. Where was the priorities for these nigger leaders. starting from kaunda himself. you bakaunda kwacha (K) was at par with pound when you took over and our copper was on high demand during 70s but you failed to put ICU in Mansa but sent money to Zimbabwe and south africa, and next your fellow thief ka chiluba came and did nothing but sh*t on us and left total misery. next was Levy, Levy he tried, next was ba banda from chipata yangu tata kanshi nibakabolala next was basata he too has done a good job just like levy. Now we have a ba lungu who is not able to see the vision ahead. It was Ba sata who had this ICU arranged. bravo Mr Sata.
Let all provinces be attended to in a similar manner and quality of life of ordinary Zambians will greatly improve. Bravo PF!
ICU equipment is very affordable, even I Can buy from my pocket change. This just shows a lack of priority from government and lazy administrators
Just rebuild that hospital. Its lay out is confusing.