Skills flight hamstrings St Giles Rehabilitation Centre

Harare (New Ziana) –Massive resignations of health personnel flocking to western countries in search of greener pastures has hit St Giles Rehabilitation Centre in the capital.

In remarks while receiving two treadmill machines from the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) on Monday, St Giles Rehabilitation Centre board chairperson Nancy Matshe said they are also having difficulties to rehabilitate patients admitted to the facility because of poor and obsolete equipment.

Matshe called for support from the corporate world for the centre to realize its plans to expand its services and lend a hand to the fight against drug abuse in the country by building a drug abuse rehabilitation centre.

Presently the centre offers physiotherapy, occupational therapy and hydrotherapy for patients who have vile bladder control, overweight patients and speech therapy.

The hydrotherapy pool, one of only two such facilities in the country, was officially reopened last March by Vice President Constantino Chiwenga who at the time was also the Minister of Health and Child Care.

Wards at the centre are literally always packed with patients with road accidents one of the major contributors to the occupancy, while a new luxury ward that will increase the carrying capacity of patients and is halfway complete is being built.

Handing over the treadmill machines soon after a tour of the centre, NSSA board chairperson Dr Emmanuel Fundira said: “The rehabilitation work that we witness here at St Giles speaks of commitment and a passion to assist our own to return to normalcy but the conditions we see some of the patients in reminds us of how fragile our lives are and echoes the need for a society that comes together to share the burdens of life.”

Fundira said NSSA is ploughing back into the community that it serves and the centre goes beyond rehabilitation to assist on safe or near normal return to society by providing vocational training to NSSA patients.

New Ziana