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Mashonaland West Bureau
Government has moved to avert a crisis at Kariba District Hospital where all the drugs, digital X-ray machines and staff documents were destroyed in a fire that broke out on Thursday. The fire started in the pharmacy before spreading to the X-ray department, emergency and casualty department and the main theatre before firefighters managed to contain it. Investigations to ascertain the cause of the fire are still underway.

Mashonaland West provincial medical director Dr Wenceslaus Nyamayaro said contingency measures had been put in place to ensure minimum disruption to operations at the hospital.

“All drugs from the pharmacy have been destroyed while the X-ray and ultra-sound machines have also been destroyed. The fire also destroyed the emergency and casualty department and all the equipment,” said Dr Nyamayaro.

“The theatre, which is mostly used for outpatients, was also destroyed while the information database for our staff was burnt to ashes.”

The wards were not affected and authorities have moved to discharge those whose condition were not serious. There were 20 patients admitted at the 65-bed hospital when the fire broke out.

Further admissions at the hospital were halted while drugs were being mobilised with plans to open a temporary pharmacy.

“We are now mobilising drugs which we expect to arrive later today (yesterday) or tomorrow (today) early morning. As for the equipment we will open a temporary structure.

“We are also looking at getting X-ray machines from other clinics and institutions around including our Ministry (Health and Child Care). We want minimum disruption to services,” he said.

Dr Nyamayaro said new patients were being admitted at Nyamhunga Clinic as a stop-gap measure.