Delivery bed at doctor`s residence shocks team

A local social accountability monitoring (SAM) team in Kiteto District in Manyara Region revealed some jaw dropping findings affecting the welfare of Tanzanians in 16 health facilities visited recently.

Among the shocking findings was a delivery bed at the doctor’s house, drips supported by window seals and no water supply in the health facilities.

During a public dialogue organised by the community SAM team to share the findings, it was revealed that at the Lesoit health facility, nurses used a bench as an examining bed while at Loitepes facility, one of the delivery beds was found at the doctor in charge’s house.

It was also revealed that water is a great challenge in Kiteto district. In most health facilities patients are advised to bring water from home when visiting the health facilities. At Songambele facility, at times nurses used their own money to buy water for patients.

At Ngabolo dispensary, the SAM team saw toilets full of stones and sands because patients were told not to use them due to lack of running water.

The SAM team explained that this could have been caused by poor planning and wondered why the district would build a modern toilet while well aware of the water problem in Kiteto.

Meanwhile, at Irkiushi health facility, a drip was found attached to the window seals as there was no stand for it.

Moreover, most of the health facilities visited by the SAM team were closed during working hours due to lack of human resources. People complained that every time they visited the facility, they would either find it closed during working hours or no medicines.

The Kiteto District Executive Director (DED), Jane Mutagurwa who was responding to issues raised from the findings, was shocked by the poor operations of the health facilities in the district.

Expressing her disappointment she asked: “What is a delivery bed doing in the doctor’s house? You people have to change, unless you want me to be transferred back to Dar es Salaam.

Contributing to the debate, one Assam Konge blamed the councillors for not being accountable to the people and asked them to wake up and take their responsibilities seriously.

“The councillors should work on improving the health services in our communities,” he said.

DED Mutagurwa promised Kiteto residents that the embarrassing issues unveiled by the SAM team will soon be history. “We are going to have a full council meeting and I believe by then some of the challenges raised will have been taken care of,” he said.

The SAM public dialogue was facilitated by Sikika, a health advocacy organisation, after conducting training on SAM for almost 3 weeks. The team, comprised members from the community, councillors, Ward Executive Officers, representatives from health governing committees, religious leaders as well as local civil society organisations (CSOs).

The team’s task was to follow up on quality of service delivery, seek clarifications from service providers and demand for accountability.

Participants of the public dialogue included the representatives from the citizens, Councillors, Ward Executive Officers; District Medical Officer, DED, SAM team etc.

Speaking on behalf of Sikika, the Head of Programmes, Josephat Mshighati said he was pleased with the exercise and that the organisation will take the project to Iramba, Singida Rural, Kondoa, Simanjiro and Mpwapwa districts.

“We believe that the SAM exercise will bring a lot of change especially in the health sector…we have already seen some positive changes. Councilors have made a commitment to address all issues in the next full council meeting and citizens have started questioning authorities on the level of services delivered including the construction of modern toilets in Kiteto where water is a critical problem,” he said.