Major referral hospital  in South has 4 ICU beds

Major referral hospital in the south, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital has only four beds, forcing hospital management to refer most cases to an upmarket expensive Mwaiwathu Hospital at K900 000 per day per case.

Hospital officials say Queen Elizabeth Hospital refers at least 340 cases of intensive care unit to Mwaiwathe Hospital which constitutes 81 per cent of all ICU cases at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

In addition, our source says Queen Elizabeth Hospital provides two nurses and support staff whenever the public hospital refers ICU cases to Mwaiwathu Hospital.

The chairperson of parliamentary committee on Health Juliana Lunguzi said the current trend is not sustainable.

“This is very expensive. It is not surprising that Queen Elizabeth Cenral Hospital has owes Mwaiwathu Hospital a lot of money under this arrangement,” she said.

Lunguzi said the government should expand the ICU at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital to deal with all the ICU cases.

Malawi Health Equity Network executive director George Jobe said his office would be meeting ministry of Health officials to forge the best way forward over the matter.

Health rights activist Maziko Matemba said the money used to pay ICU servces at Mwaiwathu Private Hospital should have been used for other public health activities.