By Chinoyi Chipulu and Esther Chisola
It’s 19:50 hours and the atmosphere looks gloomy at George Health Centre situated in Matero Constituency in Lusaka, as patients walk in and out of the health facility to access various medical services while improvising with candles and phone torches on account of no electricity at the facility.
Patients that are coming in and going out have to use their phone torches to access their way to the darkened building due to lack of visibility as a result of prolonged loadshedding which has affected various sectors of the economy.
The government has on several occasions informed the national that hospitals and other health facilities would not be loadshed but the opposite was happening at George Health Centre, one of the clinics visited by Daily Revelation.
This visit to the health facility came after several complaints were received from patients and other concerned citizens of how desperate the situation was to access services without electricity.
The clinic which is supposed to help provide life actually appeared like it needed life itself, surrounded in darkness, with some flashes of torches and candles here and there. The only distinguishing feature was the constant flow of people to and from the darkened health facility.
But this is contrary to government reports that clinics and hospitals would be spared from load-shedding, despite the very busy George Clinic being one of the health facilities where patients are receiving treatment in candle light.
The facility was surviving on candles to offer help to mothers with sick babies who were the majority on the queue.
Some of the clinic staff were heard complaining about how working had become extremely difficult, such that even the phones they use to work with in the dark ess had gone off and there was no reliable alternative apart from a candle which was placed on the centre of the table where they were taking vitals from.
“Ahh! My phone has gone off. It’s like I didn’t charge it. I don’t know how I will work because we don’t know when power will be restored back,” one of the clinic staff was heard complaining.
While waiting to be attended to by the clinic officers in charge, some clinic staff were seen carrying buckets of water within the clinic, owing to the scarcity of water linked with the same crippling loadshedding the country is enduring.
During the hours spent there, there was no sound of a generator or lights coming on that use solar energy to light up the premises.
Despite this being a very busy clinic as could be seen from the many people flocking to it, the people unfortunately had to make do by sitting in the dark as they waited to be attended to by health practitioners who also depend on candles.
At some point, the reporter used her phone torch light to assist a woman dress her sick baby as the place.
The baby’s mother complained that the situation at the clinic was terrible and wished the government would do something about it.
“Awe boma iyanganepo, ukulachula so kwati tatuli bantu (Government should work on this situation, we can’t be suffering like this as if we are not human beings) Awe (no). This is too much mwebantu, this is a very busy clinic but how can they be operating like this. We can’t continue suffering like this,” she said as she left the clinic with her child.
Another man complained bitterly about the situation stressing that the government had abandoned them.
“How can they take those big generators in markets and leave clinics like this? This is unacceptable. Ekuchula uku (this is real suffering) because they would have at least provided solar panels but nothing,” he said.
As the man was complaining, he woman who appeared critically ill was being aided into health facility on a wheelchair.
As the sick woman was being pushed on the wheelchair, other patients who were waiting to be attended to, switched on their torches to help her family with the navigation into the clinic.
Inquiring from the patients over how long the situation had been going on, some people at the clinic said that has been happening ever since Zesco increased the hours of load shedding, with the situation only worsening now.
“Pano nifinofine katwishi nefyo bakwanisha, epo amalaiti yatampila ukuya ngataukwete torch yobe ninshi kuchula (it has always been like this ever since we started experiencing power outages. We suffer if you don’t come with your phone because we can’t depend on their candles),” a man responded.
Another check at Bauleni clinic, revealed the situation as the clinic was also in darkness, the only improvement being the provision of lights that depend on batteries being used in some wards, while the labour ward had phone torches.
