Power cuts affect health care delivery

ZIMBABWE has been experiencing recurrent power cuts over the past few years with a shortage of foreign currency being the major hurdle in restoring viability

The incessant power cuts currently being experienced in the country have affected the Bulawayo clinics in Mangwengwe, Tshabalala and at the Princess Margaret.

A Bulawayo City Council spokesperson, Pathisa Nyathi, said: “We are mostly affected during the night at clinics that offer maternity services. In most cases the council was forced to use lamps after power outages at night.

“It is extremely difficult to deliver a baby using candlelight, and especially when a baby is being delivered with complications. We are then faced with major problems trying to resuscitate it because the equipment necessary uses electricity.”

The frequency of the power cuts which appeared to have eased in the last two months, increased however, at the start of July.

A political analyst in Bulawayo, Blessing Bopoto, attributed the problem and similar misdemeanours to the absence of a substantive cabinet: “We hear that there are cabinet ministers, but the truth of the matter is that none of the ministers is taking their job seriously, that is, if they even bother to go to their offices at all.

“The country has not had a substantive government for over four months and the situation is beginning to have a very serious negative impact on the day-to-day lives of the people of Zimbabwe,” said Bopoto.

Bopoto further emphasized that Zimbabweans are hoping for a speedy and positive outcome from the negotiations currently taking place in Pretoria South Africa under the mediation of President Thabo Mbeki.