Friday, March 29, 2024

Austrian government approves a soft financing facility of up to 6.8 million euros to upgrade UTH cancer center

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The Austrian government has approved a soft financing facility of up to 6.8 million euros or K138.5 million to upgrade the aging cancer center at the University Teaching Hospitals, UTH.

This comes after protracted discussions and negotiations between the Zambian embassy in Berlin and the office of Zambia’s Honorary Consul in Austria, Mr. Heinz Messinger.

If implemented, the cancer center at UTH will be equipped with state-of-the-art medical facilities that will be able to treat most of the cancer cases currently referred abroad for treatment thereby retaining within the country the much-needed financial resources.

It is also hoped that the center could contribute to medical tourism as patients from other parts of Africa, the east and southern African regions in particular seek treatment in Zambia.

Zambia’s Ambassador to Germany Anthony Mukwita, who is also Ambassador to Austria on a non-residential basis said the Austrian offer represents one of the best chances Zambia has ever had to invest in one of the most pressing health challenges in modern history.

Mr Mukwita said globally, cancer is claiming lives that are at the most productive stage of life thereby robbing society of the human resource needed to develop nations.

He has lamented that Zambia has not been spared as the disease knows no social status or gender.

According to the Zambia National Cancer Registry, estimates were that two years ago, there were over 12,000 new cancer cases countrywide with 7,380 deaths which translates into approximately 60% of all new cases.

Ambassador Mukwita said President Edgar Lungu is committed to ending the needless loss of life to cancer as life must be preserved by sparing no effort and leaving no stone unturned.

“All our development efforts will come to naught if we do not preserve the very life we are trying to improve by propping up the economy”, said the senior diplomat.

The Zambian government, through the Ministry of Health, has embarked on a nationwide campaign to sensitize the population in respect of both cervical and prostrate cancer. Some of the strategies have included the involvement of traditional leaders and civil society organizations whose collective efforts have resulted in more people responding to the call for voluntary testing and treatment.

The cancer center was established as part of the national strategy to fight the disease but the facility is in dire need of an urgent upgrade to bring it in line with challenges posed by the management of cancer in its various manifestations.

28 COMMENTS

  1. Please what is soft financing.
    I have heard of soft loans or is this language a coded sentence to hide facts that, bakongola ndalama zinangu.
    Someone enlighten me please

  2. This is good development. Infrastructure is vital for an economy such as Zambias. As for nemwine above that is what happens when you too quick to judge and engage mouth or rather fingers before brain

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  3. @ kaizar, that is a mistake of autofil, I absolutely don’t think Nemwine does not know Australia and Austria are two different countries.
    With autofil if I want to write Switzerland, I might end up with Sweden or Swaziland. So it’s just a simple typing error.

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  4. Don’t give them liquid cash otherwise the big thief Chilufya Chitalu is still minister of health and funds maybe embezzled.

    I suggest the Austrian embassy undertakes the project to avoid theft or mismanagement.

    The outgoing PF government is on the record of grand theft.

    PF must go!

  5. The world needs to stop lending us money until we have a competent person in the office. They are just getting us in more financial trouble.

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  6. One of the sad things about zambia: We celebrate getting hand outs from foreign powers.
    6.8 million euro? Meantime a currently serving minister was cited in last year’s FIC report for having 6million USD and 17million ZMW that was laundered.
    And we are surprised that our nation is despised. The europeans, the Americans, the chinese, the japanese, they all throw these handouts at us like dogs.
    And when they see some people celebrating receiving hand outs whilst our leaders are busy stealing, they just look with disgust and disdain!

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  7. NEW MALAWI PRESIDENT GETS TOUGH, 1st DAY IN OFFICE:
    —————————————————-
    + FORMER PRESIDENT MUTHARIKA LOSES IMMUNITY
    + POLICE INSPECTOR GENERAL FIRED
    + MALAWI REVENUE AUTHORITY BOSS FIRED

    This what we gonna do to Edgar Lungu and his potberried thieves.

    Time is catching up with you PF thieves.

    PF must go!

  8. Thanks for the cirrection Tom. The same argument stands. The Austrians are advised to handle all procurement so that not a dime is lost. Western countries are a club. They share notes so they should be aware.

  9. Its also funny how the same people who today are busy celebrating and trumpeting this handout where same one shouting that we dont need foreign aid from the west after they called out the rampant CORRUPTION in this pf administration.
    It really shows a lack of principles and moral fixity. Their morality is driven by their lusts.
    And unfortunately the pf is full of this kind of people. People with no integrity. People that will be remembered for nothing good. People that have contributed nothing to the good of the nation. People that boast about cars they have bought with stolen money. They drive around the city past the suffering and starving and street kids. And all they can do is boast publicly that they have bought and drive an expensive car. They try to claim they worked for it as a…

  10. A facility is a loan if am not mistaken. I stand to be corrected but if it is true, them this is less attractive. Secondly with this amount, we should be decongesting UTH and building a new medical campas away from the City. Thirdly they are saying ageing Cancer Hospital. That facility is less than 10 years. already its referred to ageing???

  11. Madilu System: I think the new man in Malawi has acted emotionally and perhaps too hastily. The civil servants may hv been leaned on to do certain things. He needed to confer wth them so that they could reveal certain things about the departed regime.

  12. Good to know: Globally, Vienna tops the ranking for the 10th year running for the best quality of living. The best social services system in the world. Everyone(foreigners including the diasporans KZ is busy insulting) is taken care of. The PF govt has failed to look after each and every Zambian and anyone pointing out their mistakes is threatened. The Austrians are disciplined to the letter and the dumb stuff done by Zambian politicians would not be tolerated. If they can do it, why can’t we? And they are not even a Christian nation?!?

  13. Danke Österreich! This is a great gesture with no strings attached. Cancer is a more lethal threat than Covid-19 and chances of recovery are extremely slim. Also note the number of cases in comparison.

  14. THIRTEEN YEARS OLD and it is already ‘in dire need of an urgent upgrade to bring it in line with challenges posed by the management of cancer in its various manifestations!’
    The Cancer Diseases Hospital was a Levy Mwanawasa project. Instead of being funded adequately, the PF neglected it and accumulated loans for their own projects, which although planned for by Levi’s administration, they would take the credit of building them. We know that they had no vision of their own.

  15. Good help from Austria but let them find their own people to do
    The job.As the head of this ministry is running to courts so how safe is your help?He may build more flats from this.

  16. Meanwhile you have MOH and Chilufya single sourcing tenders to a Pharmacy for $17 million to deliver drugs…just the corruption stolen from that contract could have paid for this project.

  17. It’s a loan with a below market interest rate or longer term period to repay. So it counts towards our debt.
    The fact we still have to borrow for such a local project instead of using our own earnings, shows there is nothing left after servicing the other debts. There will even be less left as we service new loans!

  18. Please don’t use this money for campaigning , channel these funds exactly where they supposed to.go . Remember you cannot go abroad for medical tourism as they’ll quarantine you first before you’re admitted in foreign hospital. Be religious n improve our local health service please.

  19. Is this Kaloba or a gift? I hope it’s a gift . We don’t want kaloba money as we’re already drowning in debt.

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