State Media

Bulawayo City Council’s Health Services Department has embarked on a door to door campaign to identify diarrhoea patients following the death of five people in Luveve suburb.

The door to door campaign started on Monday and 441 people were attended to in the first two days of the campaign.

The department said 14 patients were treated from home, 15 others who were critical were referred to Mpilo Central Hospital and the rest were treated at Luveve Clinic during the two days.

The council embarked on the door to door exercise after authourities observed that those who succumbed to diarrhoea had delayed to seek treatment. Five people, four children and an adult died after being hospitalised at Mpilo Central Hospital. Residents have linked the diarrhoea outbreak to the city’s water and council has responded by taking water samples for testing and is awaiting the results.

Addressing stakeholders during a Bulawayo Water Crisis meeting yesterday, acting Town Clerk Mrs Sikhangele Zhou said council was working to minimise contamination of water through exempting Luveve suburb from water shedding.

She said the local authority which was providing free treatment to diarrhoea patients, had embarked on a door to door exercise to identify patients after learning that most residents were not seeking treatment early due to lack of money.

“On Monday we conducted a door to door exercise to identify people with diarrhoea symptoms and on the day we attended to 223 patients. The following day we attended to 218 and 14 of them were treated at home. Nurses referred 15 patients to Mpilo Central Hospital because of their critical condition,” she said.

Mrs Zhou said while the diarrhoea outbreak is largely concentrated in Luveve, cases were being recorded in other suburbs.

She said anyone with diarrhoea symptoms will be treated for free at municipal clinics.

“Doctors who attended to the patients at Mpilo are saying most of the complications were due to delays in seeking treatment. Some of the concerns were that people didn’t have money while others were a result of people thinking that they can deal with running tummies on their own. Since this is now an outbreak, Government policy compels us to exempt those patients from paying for treatment,” she said.

Mrs Zhou said Luveve suburb was now exempt from water shedding but the situation will be reviewed from time to time depending on water supplies. “In order to minimise the contamination of water, the city has exempted Luveve from water shedding but this depends on the water supplies situation at any given time,” said Mrs Zhou.

She said council has started covering up wells that residents dug as alternative water sources.