Mutare Bureau
Mutare City Council has urged the Government to take over its clinics because it struggling to cope with the growing demand for health services from residents.
Council runs several health facilities here and is in the process of constructing a new clinic in Hob House to cater for the growing population in the sprawling suburb.
Mutare Mayor Councillor Blessing Thandi recently said the council clinics were overwhelmed and called on the Ministry of Health and Child Care to take them over their running.
“Our health facilities are overwhelmed because the population that we have in our planned settlements are using those facilities. But we now have another problem, we also have a huge population in unplanned settlements so this is putting pressure on the system,” he said.
He said Government should introduce the system used in education where it adopts any schools built by councils and provides teachers and becomes responsible for other infrastructure, in the health sector.
Clr Thandi said the maintenance of health facilities was expensive and needed a collective approach.
“One of the most demanding areas is health, it is very expensive to maintain the facilities, and the demand is very high for the services.
Primary healthcare is a prerogative of central government, which means they should take ownership of all primary health facilities in Zimbabwe,” he said.
The mayor said there was need to engage other stakeholders such as the Zimunya/Marange Trust for partnerships as some of the people who were utilising council facilities were from Zimunya.
He said the trust could subsidise council on health service provision to ensure that clinics were better equipped to service the growing population.
Council proposed the Hobhouse hospital in the 2019 budget and set aside $100 000 for its construction in a move meant to de-congest city clinics and improve service delivery.
The local authority said the move to establish the facility was necessitated by the huge population figures in the area that needed to access health services.
The hospital is expected to offer all services including theatre and maternity.