Walter Mswazie Masvingo Correspondent

Masvingo General Hospital is failing to operate efficiently amid indications that it was being weighed down by outstanding utility bills of over $500 000.

Speaking during a visit to the hospital by the Health and Child Care parliamentary portfolio committee led by its acting chairman Dr Peter Mataruse last Friday, hospital superintendent Dr Julius Chirengwa said lack of funds hampered efforts to address health delivery system challenges at the provincial health referral centre.

“We are sitting on a debt of $530 000 in utility bills,” said Dr Chirengwa.

“We owe Masvingo City Council about $300 000 for water, Zesa $57 000 and TelOne $50 088.

“The hospital has to pay staff’s travelling and subsistence amounting to $46 951 and various amounts to our suppliers of food and non-food items.”

Dr Chirengwa said Government, the major source of income was not releasing the budgeted funds on time, resulting in the hospital borrowing some of the needed items from suppliers.

“We are not getting our share from the national Budget and many a time we are given less money than what we would have budgeted for,” he said.

“In 2018, we budgeted $3,6 million, but we only got a paltry $300 000 from the national Budget and this year we budgeted $3,7 million, but we were allocated $735 000. From this figure, we have only received $440 000.”

Dr Chirengwa reiterated that patients owed the institution in hospital fees and it was hard to recover the debts, as some were giving wrong addresses.

“As I have alluded to in previous forums, we are owed about $3 million by patients in hospital fees,” he said.

“It has been hard for us to recover these debts because some patients give false information on where they stay.

“We have once engaged debt collectors, but the returns have been discouraging.”

Dr Chirengwa said the situation on drugs was fairly good as the supply was at 59 percent, with vital drugs at 62,7 percent, essential drugs at 56 percent, while necessary drugs were at 41,2 percent.

Turning to staff complement, he said the 275-bed hospital was operating with 740 employees, including student nurses.

Among the employees are 602 nurses, but there were 138 vacant posts.

Dr Chirengwa said the hospital had 15 vacant posts for doctors and to date nine posts had been filled, but one doctor was on study leave, while the other one resigned, bringing the number of vacant posts to four.

“We have three Government dentists, one surgeon and three opticians,” he said.

“I also double as superintendent and gynaecologist. We also have one neurologist, paediatric and one physician.

“We are, however, happy that we were allowed to recruit 250 more nurses, but we still need some more.”

The parliamentary committee on Health and Child Care is touring all referral hospitals across the country, with the aim of assessing the state of mental health care and appreciates the challenges faced.

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