Consider building more polyclinics

13 Mar, 2020 - 11:03 0 Views
Consider building more polyclinics

Suburban

The decision by the Harare City Council to expand Marlborough Clinic into a polyclinic offering more services which include maternity is highly commendable. In fact it is our belief that the Harare City Council should adopt a similar strategy in all the northern suburbs to cater for residents and workers who are based in these areas. Gone are the days of thinking that public health facilities are for low income earners who normally live in high density suburbs. The Zimbabwean economy has changed drastically over the years such that homeowners in low density suburbs who were able to afford private medical care can no longer do so. Some have lost their jobs, others are now pensioners and their savings have been terribly eroded over the years while those still in employment may not be earning that much to afford private health care.

The expansion of the Marlborough Clinic into a polyclinic should be used as a pilot project to expand public health facilities in the low density suburbs because the nature of the Zimbabwean economy demands such services are spread throughout the city.

We applaud the decision by the Harare City Council and urge the municipality to seriously consider extending the same to all the low density suburbs. We are convinced this can work because in some instances the municipality will not be required to build polyclinics in all the suburbs because some of them are so close to each other, one polyclinic facility can be built per cluster of suburbs. For example the Marlborough polyclinic can cover Marlborough, Mt Pleasant, Avonlea and perhaps Avondale. Another one can be built in either Malbereign or Westgate to cover Malbereign, Westgate, Bluff hill, Greencroft, Goodhope, Tnywald, Madokero, Maranatha, Lenana Park and surrounding suburbs. The same model can be used for other clusters such as Chisipite, highlands and Mandara, Borrowdale, Greystone Park and Borrowdale Brooke.

Our argument is based on the fact that Ward 41(Marlborough) Councillor Kudzai Kadzombe says it has been discovered that there is money outside of the budget which council can make use to fund the expansion of Marlborough Clinic into a polyclinic.

Money should be always be found for projects which touch people’s lives such as health programmes. It would be ideal for the capital city to have polyclinics per clusters of suburbs where both general and specialist examinations and treatments are available to outpatients.

The envisaged expansion at Marlborough Clinic ill see the new polyclinic offering expanded services such as a maternity wing, public clinic, private clinic, casualty wing and an operating theatre.

The same model can also be adopted in the education sec- tor to build public schools because workers who work and live in some of these upmarket suburbs need these services and their children should not be travelling long distances to find schools that suit their parents’ earnings.

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