Karonga, February 9, 2016: Pregnant women at Lupembe Health Centre in the area of Traditional Authority (T/A) Kyungu in Karonga have for the past two months, delivering in darkness during night hours because Karonga District Hospital did not buy units for the health facility.
Chairperson for Lupembe Area Development Committee (ADC), Vincent Kayuni, disclosed this in an interview recently, saying the development resulted into use of torches by nurses to make sure the pregnant women delivered in light.
“It is very unfortunate to note that patients at Lupembe Health Centre are failing to access treatment just because of electricity units that cost less than K10 thousand per month, and as a community, we are worried because this might lead to deaths.
“I am not convinced on why the district hospital is currently failing to provide the units while it is receiving funding,” worried Kayuni.
He said the health facility received units for February from the parent hospital following an effort by a Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Frank Mwenifumbo.
However, a visit to the health facility Friday showed that it continues to face electricity challenges as it was unable to provide immunization vaccine for diseases such as Tetanus, Polio, and whopping cough to children and pregnant women because it cannot refrigerate the vaccine day in and day out.
Speaking but on condition of anonymity, one of the health staff at the facility said lack of electricity power at the health centre resulted into all the vaccine being transferred to the district hospital a month ago. He said most of the patients are also referred there, a distance of twenty two kilometres.
When asked to respond on the matter, Karonga District Health Office spokesperson, Harold Mtambo, said in a telephone interview he was not aware of the challenge.
He however asked for more time in order to consult his seniors, but five hours later he could not pick up his mobile phone.
With a population of over three hundred thousand, Karonga District has one major referral hospital, four rural hospitals and eleven health centres all running with funding from the central government and NORAD.
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