Fire yesterday swept through the micro-biology laboratory at Chipata Central Hospital completely destroying a room housing a power-bank and a specialist computer and printer.
And Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary for Administration Kakulubelwa Mulalelo yesterday rushed to Chipata to inspect the damage caused to the laboratory, which is housed on the third floor of the maternity ward.
Ms Mulalelo said President Edgar Lungu was concerned when he was informed of the fire and instructed for immediate assessment of the damage caused by the fire.
“This visit has been prompted following a directive from His Excellence the President that the technical team quickly moves in to assess the extent of the damage,” said the health PS who was accompanied by her Eastern Province counterpart Veronica Mwiche.
Ms Mulalelo assured that her ministry will quickly work with the Ministry of Works and supply to restore the laboratory.
“The technical team will come and do an assessment, so that going forward remedial measures can be done and ensure that a plan is put in place for maintenance and void the recurrence of the fire,” Ms Mulalelo said.
Earlier, Provincial Director of Health Gideon Zulu told the PS that the fire started around 17 hours.
Dr Zulu said quick action was taken to evacuate the patients from the wards on the third floor where the gutted laboratory is located, while the Fire Service was also alerted and helped to contain the fire before it spread to other parts of the building.
He explained that the full extent of the damage and the cause of the fire are yet to be established.
“The cost of the damage is yet to be assessed and ZESCO and the Fire Service are yet to give their reports in the course of next week,” Dr Zulu assured.
And the Micro-biology scientist Moses Sinkala who was working in the adjacent room to where the fire started said he and other laboratory staff were working on a mock assessment when they sensed smoke from the next room of the power-bank.
“What happened yesterday is that between 16 and 17 hours we had power interruption from Zesco. The full team was running as we were preparing for the mock assessments for our accreditation. As we were going through the work, we sensed the smoke from the micro-biology laboratory,” he said.
He explained that after realising there was fire in the power room, they attempted to use fire extinguishers to quench the fire and also raised alarm to evacuate the patients.
Mr Sinkala told the PS for administration that it took about the fire fighters from Chipata City Council about an hour to put off the fire, but the computer and power bank batteries were all completely gutted.
He lamented that with the laboratory gutted, the micro-biology team will not be able to complete their mock assessments, which is a requirement for them to be accredited.
“It is unfortunate because for as we are preparing for the accreditation which is supposed to take place within the next few months but that will not happen,” he said.
He further noted that the gutting of the laboratory is also a drawback which means that the work of the microbiology wing at the hospital will be hampered as it is used to test specimens before commencing treatment on patients.
Meanwhile the Provincial Medical Director assured Ms Mulalelo that operations for microbiology will be transferred to another room that will be worked on starting this week so that the services are not completely interrupted.
This is very sad. As a person who has a background of working in labs I can relate to how devastating this is for the workers. So much work destroyed. However, you cannot put a price on life. So we are just thankful that no life was lost. We can replace all those goods which were burnt.
Kz
Former lab technician and now director of higher intelligence with OP
Chilufya’s girlfriend, ps, is not beautiful, he should try a chinese woman.