OK Zimbabwe Limited has donated grocery vouchers worth $50 000 to each of the Mpilo Central Hospital doctors whose quarters were destroyed by a fire two weeks ago.
Thirty-nine
doctors lost most of their property in the fire which destroyed the US$500 000
property.Doctors had to escape to safety through a single window as the fire
engulfed the quarters.
The Government
last week committed $278 million towards the repair of the damaged
infrastructure at the hospital.
In a statement
yesterday, OK Zimbabwe called on citizens to join it in providing relief to
doctors at the biggest referral hospital in the southern part of the country.
“OK Zimbabwe
Limited has given all affected Mpilo Hospital staff grocery vouchers worth $50
000 each. We commit to double all the donations made by our customers through
our stores. You can drop off gifts in the form of groceries and load Shop Easy
cards which will be passed on to the affected Mpilo staff. Drop offs can be
made at the following branches: OK Jason Moyo, OK Lobengula, OK Entumbane and
OK MART,” read the statement.
It said the
collections will run for 10 days starting from last Friday. Industry and
Commerce Deputy Minister Raj Modi on Saturday appealed to the business
community to join forces in assisting the doctors following their misfortune.
Mpilo Central
Hospital acting chief executive officer Professor Solwayo Ngwenya said the fire
left the doctors traumatised.
“It’s a welcome
move. We are very grateful for the help that is being rendered. It will go a
long way in improving their morale after a traumatic experience. They are
receiving counselling from some of our senior practitioners. Some of them are
really traumatised. It’s not something that you can overcome immediately, it
might take some time for some people to recover. Some of them are having
thoughts such as had I not been able to escape what could have happened to me,”
said Prof Ngwenya.
He said the
hospital is set to review the two weeks compassionate leave that it had given
affected doctors. “We don’t want to rush them back. We will assess and see if
they need extra time,” he said.
Government has
since provided the doctors with the relevant identity documents that were
destroyed by the fire. Chronicle
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