PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema has instructed the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) management to ensure health workers do not use mobile phones during working hours.
President Hichilema says with the commissioning of the Cancer Diseases Hospital, patients will no longer have to travel overseas for treatment, noting that Zambia has now become the third country in Africa to host a regional facility of its kind.
Speaking during the commissioning of the Cancer Diseases Hospital at UTH, Saturday, President Hichilema asked medical staff to stop using mobile phones in the wards.
“I’m also asking the medical staff, let’s stop playing with our phones when we’re in the wards. Let’s stop watching games and patients are lying on the beds, let’s be proud of our work; in fact, I don’t expect phones here. I think the system must ensure that everybody who works here, they don’t come in with their phones. We will even obliterate the network from here, unless you want to do digital consultations. You want to do digital consultations? So be it, I’m not being harsh, you know what I’m talking about. You see it on television, a patient is screaming on the bed, the caregiver is standing next there busy on their phones and these jobs are rare to come. You get a job being here, please respect that opportunity God has given you. I praise our staff there but I’m also flipping the coin, can we change our work habits and our approach to doing things. It’s not just the medical people, it’s the same, you go to a construction site, the workers are just laying around playing with their phones and the efficiencies are low. Let’s change our habits as a people if we want to compete in the world, there’s no working hour or working day. Every hour is a working hour,” President Hichilema said.
President Hichilema emphasised that quality, accessible healthcare remains central to his administration’s commitment to uplifting living standards.
“It’s a great day because healthcare delivery, the one aspect among some, where human beings are fragile, they are desperate, they are vulnerable is when you don’t feel well. And you are solely dependent on someone to make you feel better; this is one area even the strongest of men and women in the world feel alone and feel that the world is about end. But here we are today acknowledging the heritage in terms of what we found when we took public office, and the work we’ve done as we were trained in the area of economics, finance, law that the resource envelope is always limited. It doesn’t matter what country or a citizen of which country you are, whether you are in leadership or you are simply an ordinary citizen. The lesson we learn in basic economics and finance is that unlimited. The question is how do you set your priorities to utilise the limited treasury envelope? For us this is one area we chose that our resources must be directed into as it is in education, as you know health and education are two sides of the same coin,” President Hichilema said.
“The quality, accessible healthcare remains core to this governments commitment to uplifting the living standards of our people. We enter public office for one purpose only, to better the lives of those who put us in public offices. To manage public affairs, that’s my philosophical orientation that I left the private sector to come and work for the people of Zambia. Therefore, in making that decision we knew that Zambians come first and I’ve told the colleagues that work with me over and over that when you choose to work for the public, you must understand the basic rule of thumb and that is national interest comes first and sit right on top there, and personal interest are at the bottom. But the good news is that when you take care of people’s interest, your own interest will be taken care of. But never flip the coin to advance your personal interest at the expense of people’s interest. Immediately you do that, decision making will become a challenge for you and therefore prioritising the resource envelope will become even a bigger challenge for you”.
The Head of State said patients planning to fly to India for radiotherapy should now come to UTH.
“You should be happy, you should be proud and if you reflect, you have lost loved ones to cancer. And if only as a country were able to do this 10 years ago instead of squandering the resources we were borrowing, if we had used just a bit of that $31 million, we would have saved many lives. So, today we can declare that modern cancer care is now a reality within Zambia, now you can look on my right in addition to our capacity here, healthcare support; those ambulanced 150 of them to support emergency healthcare service delivery. Those planning to fly to India for radiotherapy should now come to UTH, we knew that this facility was dysfunction and we needed to find a service provider that will upgrade this facility,” President Hichilema said.
President Hichilema noted that while he is difficult to please, he was impressed with what he saw inside the newly commissioned Cancer Diseases Hospital.
“We have used our resource envelope; we have not asked any donor to put money in what you have seen inside here today. We have decided to do it ourselves; we put our money where our mouth is for the people of Zambia, I think this must be celebrated back to the choices that we make on how we utilise the resources that we have. I’m very happy that you the Zambians through your vote for us took a decision to use your resource envelope in this manner. I think this is one we can say a promise fulfilled. It sends a message that what we wish for is within reach if we work for it, and we work hard, we work smart. Not just TikTok and more talk time, this is what this country has become accustomed to, just talk time and a lot of unending talk time. Chatter on social media. This investment took $31 million which you the citizens through us, you trusted us with managing public affairs. You made a decision and that as I said, we’ll use our own resource envelope, we didn’t want to reach out to a donor or to anybody, we said we’ll do it ourselves for our people and we invested $31 million,” said President Hichilema.
“It’s difficult to make me happy, it’s just my orientation; I always ask for more but I’m very happy with what I saw inside there. Ask my cabinet colleagues, ask my assistants at State House, ask Cabinet Office, ask Finance, ask Justice; these are the ones I press on almost daily, even 01:00 in the morning. It’s difficult to get this fellow satisfied, but what I saw? We are amongst the three countries on the African continent to have. South African, Egypt [and] Zambia”.
