|
|
Mozambique: Health Minister Denounces Negligent Staff
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
5 March 2008
Posted to the web 5 March 2008
Maputo
The problems in the health service in the northern Mozambican province of Nampula arise "not because Mozambique is poor, but because there are negligent, irresponsible and careless staff in the sector", Health Minister Ivo Garrido has accused.
On a visit to Nampula, reported at length in Wednesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias", Garrido discovered serious anomalies in several of the health centres he visited, which could not be blamed on any budgetary problems.
Thus in the Namitoria health centre, one of the largest health units in the coastal district of Angoche, Garrido found that basic utensils needed by patients in order to eat their meals, such as plates and spoons, were missing. Yet these are cheap and can be acquitted locally. Garrido described their absence as unacceptable, and an indication of incompetence and irresponsibility.
At a health centre in the town of Liupo, Garrido demanded that a container lying on the premises be opened. Inside were a large number of mosquito nets that should have been distributed to protect the local population, particularly pregnant women and children, from malaria. Nobody could explain why the nets were still in the container.
In a second container, Garrido found material intended for health education campaigns unused and deteriorating. "This is the price of irresponsibility, incompetence, carelessness and disorganization", commented the Minister.
At Nacacane, in Mogincual district, Garrido found the health staff had taken no notice of the cultural sensitivities of the population. This is a rural area where much of the population is Moslem and socially conservative: yet when the only midwife at the health centre herself took maternity leave, she was replaced late, and by a man.
The result was a collapse in the number of births at the health centre, since the women of Nacacane refuse to give birth in the presence of a man. "You have to respect the culture of the population", Garrido told the staff of the health centre. For these women, it was not acceptable for a man to be a midwife, "but you paid no attention to that, even when you knew that the midwife was going to take maternity leave".
In health centres in Moma district, Garrido found the stores of medicines and surgical equipment disorganized. But what most irritated him was the attitude of the Moma staff. For at a meeting they read a message to him in which they claimed that they were unable to do their jobs well, because the local people were hostile towards them.
"What you have said means that you are at war with the people whom you ought to be serving", retorted Garrido. "Here there is no liaison between the community and health workers, to solve problems through dialogue. This is very bad. You have to work so that you can respond to the needs of the people".
Garrido told reporters that when not only medicines but such basics as light bulbs, plates and cutlery are missing from a health centre, this was the result of negligence, not of the country's poverty. "Measures must be taken with regard to negligent, irresponsible and careless staff", he said. "In Nampula, they must at least leave the posts they currently occupy. The Mozambican people cannot continue to suffer because of their irresponsibility".
|
He said he had given orders to buy locally the basic goods that were missing. "The image of the health service has to change", he said. "When a citizen goes to a health post, or a hospital, he must have some trust that he is going to a serious and responsible place, which has the goal of serving the citizens and not the opposite".
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
