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Herald Correspondent
PARIRENYATWA Hospital has bemoaned inadequate funding from Treasury saying it was compromising service delivery and not matching the ever rising demand for healthcare. Speaking at a nurses graduation and prize-giving ceremony in Harare last week, Parirenyatwa Hospital’s acting principal nursing officer, Mrs Kerith Mukumbi, said funding for the hospital continued to dwindle.

“Government’s grant for hospital operations has dwindled from a high of $8 million for the 2011 financial year, to the projected $1,4 million for the 2016 financial year. This is obviously grossly inadequate especially at a time when the hospital’s workload continues to increase,” she said.

“The frequency of accidents on our roads does not show any signs of abating and the burden of both communicable and non-communicable diseases continues to increase. This creates a drain on our meagre resources.”

Mrs Mukumbi said the hospital was failing to get adequate support from “the bigger medical aid societies”, worsening the situation. She said owing to lack of funding, the hospital was largely depending on fees paid by patients.

“The revenue that we collect from hospital fees is what has kept the hospital functional and it is this revenue which has facilitated the replenishment of essential medical and surgical supplies and enables us to pay for other services,” said Mrs Mukumbi.

Mrs Mukumbi said revenue generated from hospital operations was on the increase. “Revenues generated from hospital operations have risen from the $7,8 million collected in 2011, to the $12,5 million that we expect to collect in this financial year.”

She said it was the hospital’s mandate to offer patients timely diagnostic services and to prescribe medicines rather than referring patients to other service providers or to give them prescriptions to source their medication from private pharmacies.

Mrs Mukumbi said referring patients to other health institutions had the undesirable effect of delaying patient treatment and prolonging their stay in the hospital. The event saw 61 general nurses and 69 specialist nurses graduating.