Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals is facing a shortage of bedding which has resulted in some admitted patients going home without treatment or spending days sleeping in corridors.
The crisis has been compounded by the emergency of the coronavirus which has forced the government to divert resources towards the refurbishment of part of the hospital into a COVID-19 emergency facility.
Parirenyatwa has been receiving an increasing number of people in need of medical attention, more so with the closure of Westend Hospital’s casualty units following the outbreak of Covid-19.
A patient at Parirenyatwa Hospital who spoke to Business Times on anonymity over fears of victimisation had this to say:
The situation is sad because I was admitted on Sunday but has been sleeping in the corridors because the hospital has run out of beds. I have an injury that requires an urgent operation and the wound needs dressing but I have not been admitted to date and there is no hope of getting space anytime soon.
Parirenyatwa chief executive Ernest Munyawu recently told legislators that the hospital has 1 200 beds, adding that under normal circumstances, there would be a 90% to 100% occupancy rate.
Munyawu also revealed that the hospital did 14,405 theatre operations in 2018, but these dropped to 7,107 in 2019. The hospital also had 50,553 persons on casualty in 2018, but in 2019, it recorded 46,025. For outpatients, the hospital had 121,765 in 2018, but in 2019, the figure dropped to 94 693.
Parirenyatwa hospital was named after nationalist politician Dr Tichafa Parirenyatwa who was Zimbabwe’s first black medical doctor.
It was formerly called Andrew Fleming Hospital and was named after the principal medical officer to the British South Africa Company.