FINANCIAL services group, NEDBANK last week donated two incubators to United Bulawayo Hospital (UBH) to improve the health institution’s paediatrician ward.
Nedbank representative Heresy Herry said his son survived in an incubator, hence the decision to donate hospital incubators to curb infant mortality.
“My first-born son survived in an incubator. He spent 72 hours in it. Organisations are led by people and those people come from communities,” Herry said, while noting that the donation was in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that seek to, among other things, reduce infant mortality by 2030.
“I believe Zimbabwe in 2021, out of 1 000 children born, we lost 35 children needlessly, and the target is 12 out of a thousand,” he said.
Expressing gratitude, UBH chief medical officer, William Busumani said: “We are serving an underprivileged population. You guys can go to other institutions for specialised care, but there is someone (who cannot afford that) and if he or she does not go to UBH, then that patient is dead.”
Head of the paediatrician department, Tony Nyamutowa said the incubators were explicitly designed for pre-term babies.
“Their main function is to control the temperature because when babies are born, they don’t have much fat to control the temperature because organs will still be immature,” Nyamutowa said.