At the peak of the first wave of the deadly virus last
year, the city had seven quarantine centres including Bulawayo Polytechnic and
United College of Education as major centres for those who were returning
mostly from South Africa and Botswana.
The other quarantine centres were Youth Centre, Townsend
High School, Gifford High School and Standard Hotel.
Bulawayo provincial welfare officer, Fanwell Dzoma revealed
that the city was now using Esigodini and Bubi districts for quarantine
services.
“For now, there is no quarantine centre for Bulawayo, those
in need of quarantine are now being accommodated at either Inyathi Public
Training Centre in Bubi or Eskhoveni Public Service Training Centre at
Esigodini,” Dzoma said during an online reform indaba meeting hosted by
Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) on transparency and
accountability of Covid-19 resources.
“The challenge why we no longer have a quarantine centre in
Bulawayo is because we don’t have a public institution that can cater for
returnees, who need to be quarantined.
“Of cause, we have been using these polytechnics and
schools, but when they opened, we then had the challenge of where to put these
returnees.
“As a result, it was decided that since we don’t have
public institutions like the other districts or provinces like Bubi and
Esigodini, so we may now have to use those public institutions.”
Dzoma said after schools and colleges opened around
September last year, they opted for Khumalo Hotel, however, the idea was
aborted as the government was losing lots of money through bills.
He said since all returning residents are now required to
provide Covid-19 PCR certificates at all entry points, quarantine centres were
no longer very necessary.
“Another issue now is most of these returnees that we were
receiving from the past weeks are being tested at the border and most of them
are now coming with their results.
“From the border, they are transported to Bulawayo and they
go to their homes, they no longer need quarantine if they are negative but for
those that are positive, they go to Inyathi or Eskhoveni but they are very
few,” Dzoma added. Daily News
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