Mozambique: No X-rays at Mavalane Hospital, Maputo

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: No X-rays at Mavalane Hospital, Maputo

1:27 CAT | 25 Jul 2024

Photo: O País

Users needing X-rays are directed to Polana Caniço General Hospital, a note on the glass of the acceptance booth informs.

There, our reporting team came across a distraught elderly woman in the corridor leaving the hospital with her grandson on her back, without having been attended to.

“I went to José Macamo Hospital and Mavalane General Hospital, now I get here and they say there is no machine. I live in Hulene, far away. Now all I can do is go home and soak my foot in hot water,” said Rebeca Mondlane.

At hospital after hospital, Rebeca Mondlane was dismissed due to alleged dissatisfaction among the medical profession, according to her account.

“They said there were no technicians due to the difficulties that everyone sees on television. If I wanted, I could go to José Macamo or the Alto Maé Health Centre,” she told us.

“I went to Mavalane. A hospital of that size not being able to repair a machine breakdown, does that make sense? They say the machine hasn’t worked for who knows how many months. In Samora’s time, we didn’t have to put up with this,” the elderly woman said.

Another lady who had waited at Polana Caniço more than three hours without being seen left the waiting benches on crutches. According to her son, Roberto Manhiça, the technicians said they should try another hospital, because the person responsible for the sector was not present, for reasons that were not clear.

“The doctor who attended to us says that the X-ray technician was not at work today. This is ridiculous, because there are patients here who need an X-ray, who probably have serious problems, like my mother. We have been here for three hours,” Roberto explained.

Doctors resume their strike next Monday, ostensibly as a way of demanding working resources, from bandages and serum to syringes and more.
Mavalane General Hospital in Maputo has been without an X-ray machine for more than three months. All patients who arrive at the City of Maputo health unit are sent to the Polana Caniço General Hospital, but the service there is poor.

On Tuesday night, the newspaper O País visited some hospitals in the capital, to \’take the pulse’ of patient care before the start of the doctors’ strike on Monday.

At Mavalane General Hospital, the first aid room is operating normally, but the radiology sector is closed because the X-ray machine has been out of order for months.

Source: O País