Mpilo Central Hospital's Incinerator Nears Completion
A state-of-the-art incinerator funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is currently under construction at Mpilo Central Hospital and is scheduled for completion in early 2024.
An incinerator is a facility designed to burn waste materials at very high temperatures until they are reduced to ash, gases, and heat.
CITE reported Mpilo Chief Medical Officer, Dr Narcissus Dzvanga, as saying that the incinerator would not only benefit the hospital but also assist the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) in waste management. Said Dzvanga:
The incinerator is under construction, it’s going to be a game changer in waste management in the Southern region. It’s not meant to save the hospital but the city.
As you saw for yourself it’s a huge building and it’s going to come with two trucks for collecting liquid waste and other forms of waste.
I am sure we will be able to assist Bulawayo City Council (BCC) with waste management as well.
Everything is ready, they have started the recruitment of relevant staff, incinerator operator, electrical engineer, and mechanical engineer.
Once we have the full complement of the staff that is required then they are ready to bring the meta.
What they don’t want is to deliver then the thing is lying idle because we don’t have an incinerator operator, the engineer.
So they are saying once we have manpower ready, they deliver, they train and we are done.
For some of the ranks they are basics, drivers, general hands, we can recruit within.
Overreliance on donor funds to construct critical public health infrastructure could be an indication of misplaced priorities by the Zimbabwean Government.
In the 2024 ZWL$58.2 trillion budget, Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister Mthuli Ncube allotted ZWL$6.3 trillion to the Ministry of Health and Child Care.
This represents a meagre 9.2 per cent, which is about 6 per cent shy of the Abuja Declaration agreed 15 per cent which Zimbabwe ratified.
Meanwhile, incineration can be controversial due to concerns about air pollution, potential health risks, and the impact on the environment.
However, modern incinerators are often equipped with air pollution control technologies to minimize emissions of pollutants such as particulate matter, heavy metals, and dioxins.
Furthermore, when properly designed, operated, and regulated, incinerators can provide a way to manage certain types of waste and reduce the volume of material going to landfills.
They can also be useful in recovering energy in the form of heat or electricity through waste-to-energy technologies.
More: Pindula News
