Resident Doctors Association of Zambia – RDAZ President Dr. Brian Sampa has disclosed that the issues popping up at the Ministry of Health – MOH and it’s key institutions such as the University Teaching Hospital – UTH are no longer about money, but about the quality of management and leadership.
Dr. Sampa stated that it’s not about money because the new dawn government keeps on announcing billions of money being released. Moreover, this is the only government which has managed to release K3.3 billion for medical supplies, thus it is not about money but about the management challenges at the ministry.
The RDAZ President said that the Minister has lamentably failed, thus the issue of management at the ministry requires the intervention of the President. The minister has no capacity to run the ministry at this moment, it’s like it’s complicated for her.
In an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, Dr. Sampa said Ministry of Health is so critical such that it’s smooth operations boarders on national security, it’s very cardinal and the goodwill of the president may be tarnished just because of one ministry”.
The current Health Minister [Sylvia Masebo] who is also Chongwe member of parliament has shown several times that she does not believe that we have a problem in MOH, she believes whatever people are talking about are just insinuations from people who are not happy”, RDAZ has revealed.
Dr. Sampa says Zambia has a collapsing health system and things are not okay, these are things always talked about but no one seems to be paying attention. He said the suspension of full blood count testing by the University Teaching Hospital under the department of pathology and microbiology is just a tip of an iceberg, because others areas are also in crisis. The CT scans are not working, the X-ray machines are not working, the ultra sound machines etc have challenges.
He further re-iterated that there are no drugs and needles among other things in most public health institutions. Dr. Sampa added that if one has a fracture and goes to the hospital today, there will be need for one to buy his/her own bandage and cotton wool among others. He told ZBT that at cancer hospital, people are dying because the drugs are not there.
UTH has today through a statement announced the suspension of full blood count testing – a basic and essential procedure – attributing the suspension of the service to the lack of reagents for instruments. The statement from UTH further stated that until the department of pathology and microbiology receives the needed reagents, it cannot predict when testing will be resumed.
Efforts to get a comment from the health Minister Sylvia Masebo proved futile by press time.
