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POOR SERVICE DELIVERY BREEDS CORRUPTION

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Sir,

Your lead story published on September 16, 2024, ‘Hospital Staff Cashing in on Health Crisis,’ makes health employees interventions sound so bad, yet it is poor service delivery that breeds corruption. You looked at it as a business opportunity, while, on the other hand, health workers are actually helping us as the public. Imagine having to travel to Clicks to buy a pregnancy test kit, while you are bleeding because the doctor needs it for diagnosis, prescription and treatment.

Poor service delivery by government has created a very difficult situation for the ordinary liSwati who hardly affords transport fare to go to hospital, only to find health workers without the necessary supplies to help him or her. The shortage of medical supplies has became a norm in our public health facilities, resulting in the situation we are discussing today. Illegal as it is, we need to find convenient ways to deal with the situation. It seems very unfair and inconsiderate for a healthcare provider to send a sick person to town to buy medication that needs to be administered immediately.

As human beings, empathetic health care workers are driven to think outside the box and devise a way to assist, than just watch people suffer. Let us not forget how hospitals function in this country. On weekends and after hours (i.e. from 4pm to 8am), only nurses are readily available. Other professionals only attend to emergency situations. This means that if your situation is not considered an emergency, you will only get medication the following day, when the pharmacy opens - not forgetting that the doctors and other healthcare providers can also attend to you the next day. If you happen to be seen by the doctor and get a prescription, you will still come back to collect medication the following day. Imagine if there’s no injection to stop your vomiting at the hospital or being injected with an alternative drug which might not be effective as opposed to one that is compatible with your condition just because government did not supply it.

Sick

It is absurd to expect a sick person to travel long distances to buy drugs  or other necessary supplies from private suppliers, when these items are not available at all in the government facility, especially during emergency situations. Our government should up its game and make sure everything is available, if not, they should licence private pharmacies to sell near or within the hospital premises, from either fixed or mobile outlets, as long as patients don’t suffer. Frankly, there is absolutely no need for health workers to hog headlines for the wrong reasons.

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