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Temeke hospital taking patients for a ride
2007-01-20 09:53:20
By Correspondent Haji Mbaruku
The Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner, Abbas Kandoro had recently made a visit to Temeke Hospital as part of his duties.
He also made a visit to familiarize himself with developments at the hospital as he got the opportunity to talk to workers.
During the visit, the Temeke Chief Medical officer, Dr.Seleman Muttani told the regional commissioner that lack of sufficient medical staff was taking its toll on the hospital.
``Medical staff at present is not enough to attend to more than 100 patients coming to the hospital daily for treatment,`` he said.
He told Mr.Kandoro that lack of sufficient medical staff has resulted into patients complaining that they are not being attended to by the doctors who sometimes seem to be very busy treating serious patients.
The decision done by Dr.Muttan to ask Mr.Kandoro to help his hospital acquire more medical staff will be received with great joy by Temeke residents.
It should be noted that, Temeke hospital is among the busiest hospitals which receive many patients from different places on a daily basis.
For instance, patients from Mkuranga, Kibiti, Mbagala, Chamazi, Kimanzichana, Kiburugwa, Mbagala Kingugi, Nzasa, and Kongowe are all treated at Temeke hospital.
Lack of enough medical staff at the centre has resulted into loss of lives.
However, Mr.Kandoro has promised the management of the hospital that their problems will be solved effectively.
Mr.Kandoro says that he will contact the ministry of health and social welfare to help in solving the problems.
``I will contact Prof. Mwakyusa of Ministry of health and other relevant authorities,`` said Kandoro to solve the problems.
Many people have applauded the move to increase more medical staff at the hospital since it will help to save the lives of the patients.
Many patients seeking treatment at the hospital have been accused the management of negligence and lack of enough staff that often forced patients to queue for long in order to see a doctor.
Apart from that, there are so many issues which need to be improved at the hospital to ensure that all patients receive effective treatment.
For instance, during the National Assembly session held in Dodoma November 19 last year, the deputy minister of health, Dr.Aisha Kigoda responded to a question asked by Amina Chifupa Mp special seats, when the government will make sure that all pregnant women and children are treated free of charge.
On visiting most government hospitals to pursue these claims, whether true or not, I realized that the government was cheating.
Sikujua Majaliwa, who gave birth recently says that any woman who gives birth in government health centres must buy her own delivering tools.
``It`s not true that all pregnant women and children are treated free of charge, when I went to deliver in company of my husband, I was told to buy all the needed tools to enable me to deliver safely,`` Sikujua assured me.
Zainabu Seleman says that even if the government says that all pregnant women and children should be attended to free of charge by the hospital the patients received are too many and it is not possible to attend to them all free of charge.
\"Therefore, the government has no capacity to give them free treatment, some of them must pay,\" she says.
Lack of enough medicine is among the problems which the hospital should work on.
Lack of medicine in various health centres is a burden to the patients and discouraging. Even essential drugs like panadol are never in stock at the local health centres.
Temeke hospital has so many problems which need to be addressed to save the large number of patients who prefer the place as they can not afford to be treated in private hospitals.
If people had capacity to go to private hospitals, no one would dare to accuse Temeke hospital but since many needy people bank on government hospital like Temeke, Amana and Mwananyamala, people must speak out.
Those who have lost their relatives accuse the hospital of negligence in addition to lack of essential medicines.
For instance, Kandoro was called by the management of the hospital to solve the problem of women who delivered in a taxi because the hospital`s procedure of admission was cumbersome.
Also, it is alleged that some of the people have filed various civil suits against the hospital for causing deaths of their relatives.
Another problem which should be solved immediately by the hospital is mixing patients of different age groups suffering from different ailments together and sharing beds.
For instance, a man suffering from Tuberculosis may be admitted in the same ward with a patient suffering from malaria and they share one bed.
This may results into spreading of contagious diseases.
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