A VOLUNTARY organisation has opened a fully equipped maternity clinic in the Cyclone Idai-hit Vhimba area in Chimanimani, a development that will help curb maternal deaths and child mortality in the district.
Lions Club International Foundation poured US$100 000 towards the construction of the Vhimba Maternity Clinic.
It was officially handed to villagers at the weekend.
“We are very happy with what the Lions Club has done here,” 60-year-old villager Clara Mwaiyana said.
“We didn’t have any maternity facilities here, so people have been walking over 10km to access assistance at the nearest health institution.”
The clinic will serve at least 30 000 people from Zimbabwe and Mozambique as the facility was constructed close to Rusitu River, which flows between the two countries.
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Vhimba was one of the worst hit areas by Cyclone Idai landslides that made a fall in Chimanimani in March 2019, completely destroying the few health facilities in the area.
Lions Club International Foundation donated US$75 000, while the local chapter provided US$25 000 to complete the project.
Vhimba Clinic has a maternity unit equipped with a resuscitation machine, suction pump and two delivery beds, an ante-natal unit with four beds, a post-natal unit with four beds and a waiting mothers’ facility with four beds.
“The availability of such equipment will reduce post-delivery complications,” the clinic’s midwifery nurse David Sithole said.
“There won’t be a need for any referral of our patients to the nearest hospital in Chipinge, which is some 56km away, and yet we don’t have any ambulance here. So, it also reduces costs for our patients.”
Manoj Shah, from Kenya, who is the Lions Club International Foundation past international director, commissioned the clinic.
“I have travelled to many parts of Africa as a Lion leader, seeing the magic of this foundation, but from the bottom of my heart, this project stands out to be the most outstanding,” Shah said.
“I understand there were some challenges to put this up (because of the roads), and (that) it (is) benefiting a community that is beyond reach of anything else nearby, makes it unique.
“This is only the beginning of more good things to come in this particular village. We would like to expand the project by putting a shed here.”