BY BERNARD MHONE
The lives of about 900 palliative patients in Mzuzu are in danger following revelations that lack of adequate resources at Mzuzu Central Hospital (MCH) is crippling operations of the Palliative Care Unit at the facility.
MCH Chief Nursing Officer, Thom Ngwira, disclosed that they are unable to reach out to all people suffering from chronic illnesses and palliative care-related illnesses around Mzuzu.
“As a central hospital, we are a tertiary medical facility. We have children coming to the hospital from all over the region but we do not have resources to go where they are. We have more than 900 child-headed families within Mzuzu that are in danger of suffering from chronic diseases. This, in medical terms, is a big number,” Ngwira said.
He made the revelation on Saturday during a stakeholders’ meeting during which a local youth organisation called Concerned Youth Organisation (CYO) introduced a one-year project at the hospital aimed at improving the palliative care unit.
CYO Executive Director, Harvey Chimaliro, expressed commitment to save the situation by improving the palliative care unit at the hospital with special focus on children with sickle cell conditions.
“We want to improve palliative care and follow up on defaulters. We will be working hand in hand with Mzuzu Central Hospital to achieve our goals. We thought that we should come to support and complement government in improving the lives of children with sick cell,” Chimaliro said.
He further said that they will introduce mechanisms to follow up on children suffering from sickle cell and other chronic illnesses.
Chimaliro then pledged to donate a television set to the hospital’s palliative care unit and toys to make it child-friendly by July end.
“We are going to support the palliative care unit with facilities like plasma screens. This will make the hospital friendlier to the children and we will also set up a committee for networking parents and guardians with children suffering from sickle cell,” he added.
CYO was launched in 2002 and has injected 5,000 euros into the project funded by African Palliative Care Association.
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