Current Lockdown Measures Will Not Work If The Medical System Is Not Capacitated - Senior Doctors

Zimbabwe Senior Hospital Doctors Association (SHDA) secretary-general Aaron Musara has said the government’s efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, will be fruitless if they are not augmented with a plan to capacitate the country’s medical systems, Daily News reports.

Dr Musara made reference to various issues bedevilling the sector like poor remuneration and the ongoing health workers’ strike and said:

While we appreciate that the government is taking steps to implement measures that are meant to curb the spread of the virus, the major concern that we have is that the lockdown measures are not being met by real efforts to capacitate the whole medical system to work as one and successfully combat the disease’s spread.

Currently, hospitals are basically on the verge of closure because nurses are not attending, those who are attending are being exposed to Covid-19 and some of them are testing positive for the virus while as doctors we have already given the government a two-week ultimatum to solve our challenges or face industrial action.

Dr Musara said the health institutions are high-risk areas exposing frontline health workers to the virus:

This is just an indication of how the country’s health institutions have now become dysfunctional and high-risk areas exposing the frontline health workers to Covid-19 infection and in turn the public who interact with them.

Zimbabwe COVID-19 cases have breached the 2000 mark as the country recorded 2034 cases as of yesterday.

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