By Thandeka Moyo
An Indian investor is expected to visit Ekusileni Hospital in Bulawayo in due course as part of efforts to reopen the health institution. The hospital was built 17 years ago and was closed a few months after it opened.
In an interview, the Minister of State for Bulawayo, Angeline Masuku, said there were signs that the hospital would open this year.
“I will be useless if this hospital does not re-open soon and I have engaged Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa on the issue. I spoke to him this morning and he said an Indian investor was meant to tour the hospital soon,” said Cde Masuku on Monday during a tour of the hospital.
“It is a sin that people continue dying with no health care when we have such a hospital. I hereby declare that my colleague Dr Parirenyatwa should treat this as a matter of urgency. We have lamented the state of the hospital for such a long time and it must stop.”
Ms Rudo Moyo from Dawn Properties which has managed the hospital since it was established said everything was set for the hospital to be operational.
“This hospital has a bed capacity of 157 which can be scalable to up to 256 beds. Everything is set. We even have running water and we have been paying Bulawayo City Council and Zesa for the past 17 years while waiting for the hospital to be functional,” said Ms Moyo.
The Government placed Ekusileni Hospital on the list of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s 100-day programme, a move set to speed up its re-opening. Ekusileni Hospital was built in 2001.
The brain child of the late Vice President Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo, it operated for a few months and was subsequently shut down after it was discovered that the acquired equipment, worth millions of dollars, was obsolete. The Chronicle
