Lack of equipment at health facilities hampering service delivery —Sampa

Matero Member of Parliament, Miles Sampa, is concerned with the status of most health facilities in the country, especially in Lusaka, which is reporting obsolete equipment.

Sampa expressed his concern in an interview with Zambia Monitor in Lusaka on Tuesday.

He said most hospitals are lacking key diagnostic machines and as a result patients spend weeks before doctors can establish the exact illness on them to be able to prescribe medication.

“Matero level 1 Hospital only has an X-Ray and refer patients to higher hospitals in the city if any of the other three diagnostic machines are required,” Sampa said.

He said the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) has X-Ray, two computerized tomography or CT scan and one Magnetic resonance imaging or MRI machines and X-Ray room works but one CT scan is broken and all patients have to trek to the cancer department CT scan.

“The MRI machine is broken and patients have to be referred to Maina Soko Hospital and there is no PET scan machine in Zambia and hence most patients that can afford end up trekking to South Africa or India,” Sampa said.

The lawmaker said as for the other citizens, samples have to be sent to India with a waiting period of three weeks.

He proposed that government should use part of the money from the International Monetary Fund to purchase CT Scans and MRI Scans for our hospitals.

“They should even be the first to buy the PET scan machine needed for our citizens suffering with cancer.

These machines cost ranges from US$1million to US$3million and, therefore, needs deliberate attention and decisions from both the Minister of Health and Minister of Finance,” Sampa said.

He said without these life saving diagnostics machines, it was the same as asking the Doctors to use guesswork in prescribing medication for citizens.

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