. Kaseba

By CHILA NAMAIKO –
MONZE Mission Hospital yesterday celebrated its 50 years of existence with First Lady Christine Kaseba calling for increased investment in the health sector and deployment of more health workers to meet
people’s demands.
The hospital, with a bed capacity of about 274, begun as a rural health centre and was opened on October 28, 1964, four days after Zambia got her independence.
Speaking when she officiated at the hospital’s Golden Jubilee celebrations, Dr Kaseba called for more sustained collaboration among stakeholders in enhancing provision of quality health services.
The First Lady said that contribution of various stakeholders could help to positively impact many lives, hence the need for continued support to the health sector to improve people’s living standards.
“This hospital has over the years liberated many from disease and pain,” Dr Kaseba said. “This hospital has over the years of its existence restored hope in countless citizens of this country.”
She said the hospital had been successful because of unwavering support from the Government and other organisations to ensure the Catholic-run institution was operating well.
Dr Kaseba urged hospital management to continue embracing sick people through its comfort and holistic care without any form of discrimination.
She, however, said that achieving optimal healthcare required massive community involvement in order to continue uplifting the standard of health institutions.
Dr Kaseba, through her office, donated assorted items, namely, one delivery bed, vacuum extractor, five first aid boxes, a 90 kilogramme bag of rice, 90 kilogramme bag of beans, blankets and mealie meal.
Earlier when she arrived, Dr Kaseba was taken on a tour of some wards such as the maternity and children’s wards where a baby girl born in the early hours of yesterday was named after her.
Hospital superintendent Kakanda Ngalula appealed to the Government and stakeholders to help the institution with adequate water supply, and bemoaned the continued load-shedding.
Dr Ngalula appealed for more funding and allocation of beds to the maternity ward in which some expectant mothers were found sleeping on the floor.
Health Minister Joseph Kasonde said in a speech read for him by the ministry’s director, policy and planning, Christopher Simongo that the Government wanted to improve the health sector through infrastructure development and deployment of nurses.
Provincial Minister Daniel Munkombwe hailed the founders of Monze Mission Hospital for their visionary leadership which had seen the institution providing quality health services.