Women seeking maternity services at Zingwangwa Health Centre in Blantyre can now breathe a sigh of relief following a donation of a resuscitation machine worth K1 250 000 by Dossani Trust.
The donation was made following a news article that appeared in The Nation of March 30 2017 that exposed the vulnerability of newborns as the resuscitation machine allocated to the facility had broken down.
health centre officials look on
Dossani Trust trustee, Harish Kanabar, said there was a need to buy a new machine to avert further deaths of newborns.
“Upon reading the article, we saw an urgent need to buy a resuscitation machine for Zingwangwa Health Centre. We cannot allow any deaths of newborn babies because of lack of a resuscitation machine in any hospital,” he said.
In his remarks, Blantyre district health officer (DHO) Medson Matchaya said plans to repair the old machine faced funding challenges.
“This machine will be beneficial because our babies are now safe. Our health personnel had to use hands or they had to ferry patients to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital which was also expensive on our part,” he said.
Dossani Trust is also one of the major partners in Nation Publications Limited (NPL) Mother’s Day Fun Run initiative that started in 2005. So far the trust has contributed K34 150 000 towards the initiative. n
