Passengers Association of Zimbabwe (PAZ), has issued an emergency and disaster preparedness petition to both the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare Retired Brigadier-General Dr Gerald Gwinji and Mr Tatenda Chinoda, the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe Officer Marketing, seeking government to take urgent action against the deplorable conditions of the country’s national hospital and emergency response units.
‘Passenger Association of Zimbabwe (PAZ), urgently calls on government to ensure that there is an inclusive national hospital and medical emergency response program readily designed to deal with cases of road accident victims built on the principle of immediate access to treatment’, said PAZ President Tafadzwa Goliati
The petition also notes the existing numerous gaps in the efficiencies and supplies of Zimbabwe’s health-care system in relation to emergency preparedness as it relates to road traffic accident victims.
The passenger association is concerned with health facilities in Zimbabwe should be able to perform not only in a day to day setting, but more still in the handling of challenging cases during surge periods.
PAZ challenges government to ensure that major referral, provincial and district hospitals should have both in-hospital and out-hospital triage regimes on standby for emergency uses, which refers to the sorting out of work protocols at impact site and standardization of front office emergency room, in-hospital admission and treatment procedures based on medical emergency unity, availability of trained staff, appropriate medical facilities, supplies and proper patient-nurse distribution in any emergency.
Currently Zimbabwe has an acute shortage of trained trauma medical and emergency staff in all its major referral facilities. Most of the emergency equipment is now out dated and in most cases defunct which means that it can hardly be used now in any emergency or disaster situation.
Zimbabwe’s emergency and disaster preparedness equipment, manpower and surge capacity planning is not consistent with World Health Organization standards and recommended international best practice.
In a recently held hospital random survey tour by the PAZ delegation, it can be revealed that road traffic accident victims are being called upon to pay upfront for emergency blood transfusion, drip, oxygen and X-rays as well as compelled to buy medication drugs from private pharmacies before being attended to.
Many victims of road traffic accidents are mere poor people who get injured during road carnage and these in most instances lack sufficient disposable cash and financially secure next of keens to shoulder their financial burdens in such a tragic fall.
Few have active medical aid facilities but in most cases hospitals refuse to honour such medical facilities in the event of an emergency and so no medical specialist such as neurologists dare attach themselves to such victims. Hundreds in most of Zimbabwe’s government hospitals are dying or ending up disabled due to late or delayed access to emergency medical aid or in most cases victims virtually die due to the fact that they are denied emergencymedical aid at a critical stage in their lives when they most need it.
The situation in Zimbabwe’s hospitals has reached a state of emergency as far emergency preparedness and efficiency are concerned. In the event of a national disaster or a major road accident, the major referral hospitals in Zimbabwe cannot meet the demand. There are virtually no pre-emergency protocols designed for deployment on the onset of a sudden emergency challenge beyond the mundane or ordinary occurrences.
Apparently access to treatment, X-rays, blood transfusion, oxygen and drip as well as equitable distribution of equipment and supplies, in addition to insufficient medical personnel for victims of road traffic accident victims is highly visible in all of Zimbabwe’s major referral hospital.
Government currently lacks the ability to expand but is rather than scaling down its alertness to emergency and disaster preparedness needed in times of crises.
Zimbabwe is internationally recognised for its erstwhile reputation for possessing a well developed health infrastructure which caters for both clinical and public health services from national down to sub-district level. This can be attributed to the international health policy adopted by the government at independence in 1980. It enables government to focus on improving the country’s health delivery system, provision of health infrastructure and staff training. The original health radar for Zimbabwe for the past decade since 2006 seems to be now defunct and needs emergency care to resuscitate it.
Emergency care is a vital and integral element of livelihood and is part of the 5Es, the other four being Education, Enforcement, Engineering, and Environment.
Meanwhile 12 people died and 45 others were seriously injured when an MB Transport bus collided head on with a haulage truck 45 km out of Beitbridge town.
