The Medical Superintendent at Katutura State Hospital, Dr Nelago Amagulu, revealed on Monday that the hospital’s newly built 16-bed Kidney Dialysis Unit is expected to start operating in November.

Amagulu told visiting members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Gender Equality, Social Development and Family Affairs that every room at the unit was constructed with an oxygen point, ventilation systems and Wi-Fi access. The unit, she said, was initially designed to cater for COVID-19 patients during the pandemic. It currently has four dialysis machines and 12 more have been ordered.

“The infrastructure is in place, the equipment has arrived in the country. It is just installation and testing that have to be done. We are hoping that activity can be done in October so that if everything is done and we are clear, hopefully we will kick off in November. If there are technical challenges, it might be later,” Amagulu added.

The committee was spearheaded by its chairperson, Swapo member Gotthard Kasuto. Landless People’s Movement parliamentarian Henry Seibeb and Popular Democratic Movement parliamentarian Winnie Moongo formed part of the familiarisation visit to the hospital.

Amagulu noted that the 96-bed unit formed part of the COVID-19 isolation unit.

“From now on it is going to be the dialysis unit. With the renovations we are doing, we put patients in the other two blocks for now while we renovate the floor. Once that floor is done, the patients will go back and the next floor’s patients come here and we renovate that floor. We will continue to do that until all the floors are done,” she said.

She stressed that there is a need for the approval of the unit’s proposed structure.

“This is so that we are not depleting staff from an already staff-challenged hospital. We have not filled our staff complement for the main hospital and that is a budgetary issue,” Amagulu said.

Meanwhile, the members of parliament expressed their gratitude to the staff at the Katutura hospital for the cleanliness of the maternity ward.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency