By A Correspondent- Wilkins Hospital says it did all it could to save the life of Zororo Makamba, given the resources at its disposal.

The hospital said before admission into the isolation facility, it took oxygen tanks to his house twice, against standard procedure, which was administered per mask.

Oxygen is normally delivered through a nasal cannula at low concentration levels, but a mask delivers high concentration levels.

While in admission, the hospital said its staff worked flat out together with Makamba’s two private doctors to try and manage his condition. In fact, the first nurse who attended to Makamba upon arrival at the hospital is said to be unwell and presently in isolation.

The local authority is awaiting her test results. This comes amid revelations that all referral and private hospitals in the city had refused to take in Makamba for intensive care, which could have seen him put on a ventilator.

Sadly, Makamba became the first victim to die of coronavirus in the country and the second to test positive of the same. In Covid-19 response, ventilators are used to manage the breathing function of patients. The current set up in the healthcare delivery system is that ventilators are found at referral institutions where serious cases are referred to from a primary healthcare facility.

Wilkins together with Beatrice Road Infectious Diseases Hospitals are under Harare City Council and act as primary healthcare facilities. Ordinarily, any complications requiring special services such as ventilators are referred to central hospitals for further management.

“All central hospitals refused to take him, even private hospitals refused, arguing that it was an infectious case hence should be attended to at the isolation centre.

“This was despite the fact that Wilkins is administered by Harare City Council and have not received any financial resources from central government to upgrade the facility to an ideal isolation centre. As part of our upgrading, we have reserved seven ICU beds with provision for ventilators and we are still resource mobilising to get equipment for those beds.-Newsday