LUSAKA Province Minister Bowman Lusambo is concerned about delays in attending to patients at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) and Chilenje Level One Hospital and has called for improved service delivery.

Mr Lusambo said there is need for the two institutions to step up their efforts in attending to patients to avoid loss of life. The minister said this after making an impromptu visit to the two health facilities, where he found long queues of patients waiting to be attended to. “As Government, we want to make sure that we discourage congestion in health facilities such as UTH and other institutions.

“We have visited other health facilities in the city [Lusaka] which have a similar situation and that’s why we decided to visit UTH because this is one of the biggest hospitals. “We are saddened to see that people are still waiting to be attended to despite coming to the hospital as early as 08:00 hours,” said Mr Lusambo, who arrived at UTH around 13:00 hours.

He said Government wants to see improved service delivery in all health institutions. “This is the reason why we came here. We wanted to seek audience with the patients. We wanted to know what challenges they are facing when they come to these hospitals,” he said.

He urged management at the two health institutions to provide the best services to the patients.
“The President [Mr Edgar Lungu] wants people to see improvement in the health sector,” he said.
He said patients should not be kept waiting in long queues for a long time.

“We are aware that you are overwhelmed with the disease burden. I know the Minister of Health [Chitalu Chilufya] is doing everything possible to bring more staff in hospitals,” he said. Mr Lusambo was also not happy with the huge number of casual workers at UTH.

And UTH head clinical care of accidents and emergency services Kachinga Sichizya said the hospital is committed to delivering quality health service to the people. He commended Government for the continued support to the institution.

Speaking earlier, Chilenje Level One Hospital acting medical superintendent Swali Fundafunda said the hospital needs more staff as well as infrastructure