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Urbanisation and the health of residents - Residents'
voices
Bulawayo
Proggressive Residents Association Agenda
April 09, 2010
This year the International World Health Day borders on the connection
between health, population growth and urban existence. This theme
is particularly relevant to the city as the population of Bulawayo
has steadily outgrown the resources, infrastructure and capabilities
of the city fathers as evidenced by the council's waiting list that
stands at 90 000. The city's many health challenges related to water,
environment, violence, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and their
risk factors like tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity,
harmful use of alcohol as well as the risks associated with disease
outbreaks are one-way or another linked to the increased number
of people immigrating into Bulawayo from surrounding areas. Rural-urban
migration, fueled by the economic collapse of the past decade, the
land resettlement exercise and political polarization, saw some
citizens heading for Bulawayo in search of better living and working
conditions. Even then, some fell victim to the ill-advised Operation
Murambatsvina and lost their homes - shacks, huts and dura-walled
rooms. As a result, the ability of central and local government
to build essential infrastructures that make life in cities safe,
rewarding, and healthy was compromised with evident consequences
such as the 2008 cholera epidemic, the recent measles outbreak and
the ever-present threat of HIV/AIDS.
Nowhere is the
impact of urbanization on health more evident and dangerous than
in the western suburbs where clinics and hospitals are too crowded,
under-staffed and under-equipped to deal with the torrents of patients
that stream in from the different townships of Bulawayo. The two
hospitals, Mpilo Central Hospital and the United Bulawayo Hospitals
(UBH), that were primarily built as referral hospitals to cater
for the Matabeleland region are no longer of much assistance seeing
as how they are burdened by the 195 000 households of Bulawayo.
Nowhere is the
impact of urbanization on health more evident and dangerous than
in the western suburbs where clinics and hospitals are too crowded,
under-staffed and under-equipped to deal with the torrents of patients
that stream in from the different townships of Bulawayo. The two
hospitals, Mpilo Central Hospital and the United Bulawayo Hospitals
(UBH), that were primarily built as referral hospitals to cater
for the Matabeleland region are no longer of much assistance seeing
as how they are burdened by the 195 000 households of Bulawayo.
Health outcomes
are determined by environmental, social, and physical infrastructural
conditions and factors that can be influenced by residents and other
stakeholders. Examples of such determinants include water and sanitation,
quality of air, living and working conditions, access to services
and resources, among others. For instance, the city of Bulawayo's
water crisis has reached alarming levels because the huge increase
in people in the city was neither anticipated nor planned for. At
the time Bulawayo's supply dams were commissioned to supply the
city with water for domestic use, the planners had not anticipated
all the industrial and domestic expansion that would later occur.
While the residents of Bulawayo can walk tall because of the water
treatment procedures that the city council undertakes, it has to
be pointed out that with rationing in sight, the threat of unsafe
water is on the horizon. This is so because the unreliability of
piped drinking-water supplies in urban areas also encourages household
storage of water. Some of the ways of storing water have high risks
of contamination (diarrheal diseases) and vector breeding (dengue
and malaria).
Minister
Coltart to clarify issues
In response
to calls from residents, over the on-going education crisis, BPRA
has invited the Minister of Education, Sports, Art and Culture,
David Coltart to address residents. Residents in Bulawayo have passed
complaints about the state of the country's education system. It
has seen teachers perpetually on strike, school development committees
and parents at loggerheads while schoolchildren, like the proverbial
grass when elephants fight, loafing around as if education had become
extinct.
Minister Coltart
is expected to explain the matter of teachers' incentives that has
been the cause of wrangling between, not only parents and school
authorities, but teachers themselves. The minister has previously
defended the payment of incentives that are used to motivate teachers
as they are underpaid by the government. However, one wonders what
then his response will be after reports of clashes between parents
and teachers that have become the order of the day in the city.
The minister is also expected to justify or explain the unchanged
examination fees that were announced recently. A number of schools
failed to register candidates last year because parents were unable
to pay the exam fees as they were too high. More importantly though,
Minister Coltart will receive suggestions from residents and stakeholders
to help him chart the way forward and solve issues bedeviling the
country's education system.
The minister
is set to address residents and other stakeholders on 17 April 2010
at the Large City Hall at 0900hrs. All residents are invited. This
is a continuation of the service providers' consultative meetings
that the association has been holding across the city. Like in other
meetings, the purpose of this meeting is to provide a platform for
residents to air their views and concerns.
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