Friday, 11 April 2025

CANCER MACHINES DOWN : NO R1 MILLION


Close to R1 million is required to buy a new Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) machine at Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo that will enable cancer patients to receive radiation sessions uninterrupted by power outages.

Patients undergoing cancer treatment with the radiotherapy machine need continuous power supply as the machinery is very sensitive to power fluctuations and any sudden changes or fluctuations with power damages the machine, experts say.

Already, two of the cancer treatment machines at the hospital are down. This emerged during a visit to the referral hospital by Vice-President Kembo Mohadi on Friday who directed the Treasury to urgently look into the issue and avail the R1 million for the servicing of radiotherapy machines to save lives.

VP Mohadi said critical cancer machinery that services the Southern region must always be functional as patients are incurring huge costs travelling to places like South Africa, India and other destinations.

Mpilo Central Hospital chief medical officer, Dr Narcisius Dzvanga, said the UPS at Mpilo Central Hospital requires 24 batteries to keep it functional and the batteries now need to be replaced. He said according to quotations from South Africa, the set of batteries cost just over R1 million.

Dr Dzvanga said the hospital had been told to downsize their UPS machine to match that of Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, a proposal that VP Mohadi vehemently rejected.

“That is about US$100 000 needed for the machine. The machine was made like that and it has to run like that. We need to get this machine running, we cannot fail to raise this amount as a country,” said the Vice-President. “Why do they say it (UPS) machine is too big? No, we do not want that, we want the US$100 000 and Mthuli (Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion) has got to act,” said VP Mohadi.

Almost 50 percent of the cancer patients that visit Mpilo Hospital require radiotherapy but these are not being treated as the machines are down with revelations that the radiotherapy machines were procured and left in storage for many years, causing some of the faults and deterioration of the machines.

The machines are said to have been locked up at Beira, Mozambique for three years before they were eventually delivered to Bulawayo. All patients requiring radiotherapy are being referred to Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare and are having to endure long waiting periods of up to five months as the hospital is overwhelmed by the demand for the service.

VP Mohadi said it was too much of a burden for one public institution to be treating cancer in the country. Chronicle

0 comments:

Post a Comment