Clinton Health Initiative pumps K301m in CZ clinic
The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHIA) has bankrolled the construction of a state of the art clinic in Chiradzulu District valued at K301 million.
The clinic will be built at Chimwawa Trading Centre and will include a maternity wing and four staff houses in order to improve the delivery of health care in the district.
Speaking during the ground breaking ceremony on Saturday, CHIA Country Director Andrews Gunda disclosed that their intervention is meant to reduce the distance that mothers and children travel to access health care services.
“One of the issues that CHIA wants to achieve in Malawi and other countries is to ensure that deaths of mothers and babies are reduced.
Most of our mothers and babies are dying from causes that can be prevented. For instance, they travel long distances to access health care services …We think by introducing this hospital here and overall in this country, the death of mothers and babies can be reduced,” said Gunda.
He further said CHAI’s objective is to train nurses and midwives and as such the clinic will serve as a demonstration centre for medical personnel that will be trained in all colleges across the country to come and visit the surrounding villages.
“We are training nurses and midwives in all colleges in order to reduce the vacancy rate in the health sector that remains at 52 percent. We will set up a maternity wing and four houses to ensure that the health personnel have best structures. We are happy that government through the Member of Parliament for the area has showed some commitment. He is providing transport to quickly move mothers and other patients to hospitals that are distant away. This is a trigger to us,” said Gunda.
Guest of honour at the ceremony was Member of Parliament for Chiradzulu South Constituency Joseph Mwanamvekha who hailed CHAI for funding the construction of the project.
“All the people in this area are thrilled by this intervention. You can see the multitude that has gathered here. Maintenance of health standards was a problem here due to lack of a clinic to serve the people. It is 15 kilometres to the nearest hospital at Mulanje Mission, and 15 kilometres to the next hospital at Nguludi the other side. This clinic will really help people in this area access medical care in time,” said Mwanamvekha.
He further said the clinic will reduce the cases of rabies that were on the increase in the area.
“It’s remote here and people keep dogs as pets but most of the dogs go wild and bite people. You will be shocked that the area has high cases of rabies but the problem was on treatment because there is no clinic with electricity nearby to keep the vaccine. So this state-of-the-art clinic has come in handy,” said Mwanamvekha.
CHIA started operating in the country in 2006 and operates in many countries across Africa in ensuring that health care services are available to the people in local areas.
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