Dodoma — DIVISION of Dodoma Regional Referral Hospital (General) into three different units has managed to decongest the hospital, hence improving services and giving relief to patients.
The facility has divided its health services into three special units, namely the Emergency unit, Insurance (also known as One Stop Center) and the maternal unit.
These three units feature all basic health facilities, including doctor's rooms, laboratories, pharmacies, operating rooms and inpatient rooms.
Speaking in Dodoma yesterday, Dodoma Regional Referral Hospital Chief Medical Officer, Dr Ibenzi Ernest said the decission has decongested the hospital unlike in the past.
"Normally our hospital receives at least 1,500 patients a day in the Out Patient Department (OPD) and 250 inpatients, so offering services in one place was a challenge and patients were overcrowded, but after the division of units, the congestion has decreased," he said.
He said the division has improved and simplified the delivery of services, beause now patients' waiting time has reduced to a maximum five hours and all services are provided 24 hours.
Dr Ibenzi said in the 2022/23 financial year, the Dodoma Regional Referral Hospital successfully improved surgical services, where the hospital currently has 12 operating theatres capable of operating 70 patients a day.
"This service is provided daily while in the past two years the surgical service was offered only three times a week," he pointed out.
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He noted that in the emergency and intensive care units, the hospital has also been able to get modern equipment and have an oxygen production plant that help to increase the number of patients being cared for in these units.
"In 2020/2, we were capable of taking care of three (3) patients in our ICU, but as of June 2023, our hospital's ICU capacity increased to 38 patients and 32 patients in the Emergency Care Unit at once.
"We currently have a plant that processes all waste produced in this place and produce biogas for cooking which we also use to boil water in the maternity wards," he said.
He further said in the past two years, the hospital also improved the mortuary service, whereby currently it has the capacity of storing 30 bodies compared to only six bodies that were stored in the past.
Dr. Ibenzi explained that in the current financial year, the hospital plans to strengthen the provision of affordable health services to the public to ensure all patients who go to the hospital receive services without being referred to another hospital.
"Our hospital is now equipped with modern laboratory equipment, we have modern equipment such as CT-SCAN, UltraSound and other equipment," he said.
Dr. Ibenzi noted that plans were underway to complete construction of the children's ward building to address the problem of overcrowding in the existing children's ward and to begin construction of another five-storey building to continue expanding the facility and improving the quality of services.
