WHY MBABANE GOVT HOSPITAL IS ‘UNHEALTHY’

MBABANE – The Ministry of Health failed to utilise a budget allocation of E15 million for the rehabilitation of the Mbabane Government Hospital.

This is despite that the hospital’s Outpatient Department (OPD) requires an urgent revamp. This amount was for the 2013/14 financial year.

On June 23, 2014, the hospital’s OPD staff resorted to temporarily neglect their duties in a bid to voice their frustrations concerning their dissatisfaction about their working conditions.

Their concern is that the OPD building is very old and no longer conducive for anyone to operate in it.
The staff is concerned about their lives, which they feel are endangered every day at the dilapidated OPD building through inhaling airborne diseases as their rooms are not properly ventilated.

An investigation by the Times SUNDAY revealed that toilets were filled with waste material and so old that it is cumbersome for patients to utilise them.
Male toilets have no doors. Only half of what used to be a door is used by patients to gain a bit of privacy.
Walls have holes big enough to convince one that the whole building might collapse at any second.

Rooms have no proper ventilation for air circulation which is a major requirement in a hospital prone to airborne diseases like tuberculosis (TB).
“The toilets in this place are in the worst condition I have ever seen. Not only are they old but they are so filthy. You simply cannot be in a position to use them. They are blocked and filled to the brim with waste material; I simply cannot understand why somebody is not doing something about this,” narrated Thabisile Tsela, a patient found at the Mbabane outpatient department waiting to receive medical attention. 

Not a single corner of the OPD proves fit, either for working conditions or in good enough condition for the standards required by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The TB screening table was found placed in full view of the public where patients are required to give their phlegm for TB testing.
This is a health hazard for both patients and the staff that attends to the patients as TB is an airborne disease.

“We conduct TB screening services every week, from Monday to Friday, with an average of six patients diagnosed with TB every week and we worry about our health every day as the rooms of the OPD are not even well ventilated. We simply put our health on the line every day,” one of the staff members commented. 

Thobile Dlamini, a patient found at the OPD, expressed her dissatisfaction with the services of the TB screening desk as she revealed that the screening was done in full view of the public and provided no privacy at all.
Passers-by are able to guess what the suspected cause of a patient’s illness could be.
“It is improper to give a sample of your spasm while other patients glare at you,” she concluded.

Thabisile Kunene, another patient, expressed her disappointment at coming to the hospital to get her health checkup, only to find that the conditions of the outpatient building were prone to making her health deteriorate further.

“Coming to an old dirty hospital building does not give me hope of regaining sustainable health as the building is, on its own, a health hazard to me as a patient. A hospital should be neat and not smell this bad because of blocked toilets.  The visible open holes on the hospital walls are a clear indication that somebody needs to do something fast, before the building collapses on us,” said Kunene.

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