Nkhotakota District Health Office (DHO) has sent an SOS over Dwambadzi Rural Hospital water problems, saying the challenge is affecting health service delivery at the facility.

Acting Director of Health and Social Services for Nkhotakota District Hospital, Wezzi Mumba said Wednesday when Malawi Communication and Regulatory Authority (MACRA) donated assorted items to patients at Nkhotakota District Hospital.

“Dwambadzi Rural Hospital does not have running water, we had a pump there but it got stuck. We are trying to bring back the running water at the facility because it is a requirement by World Health Organization (WHO) that every health facility must have running water,” she said.

Mumba said the DHO management tried all measures to fix the problem but to no avail.
She said the facility is currently using water from a borehole.

Hospital In-charge for Dwambadzi Rural Hospital, Samuel Mwamutowe said the water challenge was haunting health service delivery at this facility.

He asked government and other well-wishers to attend to the problem.

“The water pump stopped working in May last year and we have been using a borehole which is 1.5 kilomeres away from the hospital. The DHO came to fix the pump but they failed to restore it.

“Sanitation has gone down at the facility because of water challenges and we have a maternity wing therefore, running water should be a priority,” he said.

Mwamutowe added that patients find it hard to travel to a borehole which is some kilometers away from the hospital.

Besides the challenge at Dwambazi, Mumba was concerned with the high vacancy rate in most the health facilities in the district, which she said was at 54 per cent.

She said this was compromising the quality of the health service delivery in the district.

Established in 1972, Dwambazi Rural Hospital which is located in Nkhotakota North Constituency at a distance of 101 kilometres away from its referral Nkhotakota District Hospital, serves a population of 14,752 people.

Source:Mana