New board for Harare Hospital 

Abigail Mawonde  Herald Correspondent

Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa yesterday inaugurated a new seven-member board for Harare Central Hospital.

The board, consisting of four men and three women, will be chaired by Dr Edward Chagonda while his deputy is Ms Valencia Mashamba.

Other board members are Mr James Makiya, a lawyer who was also a member of the previous board; Dr Phillipa Sibanda, Mr Samuel Hlatshwayo, Dr Agnes Mahomva, who is currently the Zimbabwe Medical Association president; and Dr Nyasha Masuka, the hospital’s chief executive.

Dr Parirenyatwa said he expected the board to tackle its roles effectively for the benefit of the health institution.

“This is supposed to be a management board and not an advisory board.

“We used to have advisory boards in the past, where their role was just to advise, but this is a proper management board and one of the biggest functions that you are supposed to do is to be able to organise resources for this institution for its development, not just to wait for Government, but to engage those in the private sector as well,” he said.

Executive chairman of the Health Services Board Dr Paulinus Sikhosana welcomed the new board, but bemoaned the Catch-22 situation that most hospital boards were caught up in, that is, between implementing Government’s directive to provide free treatment for certain groups of people and lack of funding.

“Government is saying that certain categories of patients need to be treated free at the point of service. However, there is cognisance that somebody somewhere is supposed to pay and I think that is the current dilemma that most hospital boards are having,” said Dr Sikhosana.

“On that policy framework, I would advise that there is need to havea further dialogue between the institutions and the ministry. What I believe, in terms of financing, if you ask institutions who treat patients for free — if they were charging before — they should be compensated for the revenue that they lose when treating patients for free.

“I am not saying that the hospitals should defy Government policy, but I believe that there should be complementary policies that if you ask somebody to forgo revenue that they have in terms of charging patients then those institutions need to be compensated so that they continue to provide quality service and continuous care,” Dr Sikhosana said.