Director of Health and Social Services (DHSS), at Chikwawa District Health Office (DHO), Dr Stalin Zinkanda has described unwavering support from Malawi Red Cross Society as one of its kind.
The DHSS made the remarks Thursday when the organization handed over K24 million worth of Covid-19 NFIs under the Africa Covid Vaccination (ECHO 6.5 Crisis Modifier.The donation was made as a way of building capacity on its health system by looking at a number of items so that they are able to continue to provide their services around Covid-19 vaccine.
The organization handed over solar powered fridge, masks and a number of items to support maintainance of vehicles and that vaccine carriers were among those provided to support them with scaling up preparedness to Covid-19 vaccination. Thanks to the European Union Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) through the International Federation Red Cross (IFRC) and the Danish Red Cross.
Zinkanda expressed grateful to MRCS for always being there in thin and thick.”The situation has been accute on a chronic. From Covid-19 there came cyclones hitting hard on a chronically ill system. Your support has been comprehensive as it has been looking at both soft and hardware. These have made our work a bit easier,” said Zinkanda.
He however called on other well-wishers to help his office renovate some health centres that were hit hard by the disasters but were able to provide the services though poor due to their conditions saying some were liking while others exposed health workers to some harsh conditions.He added that plans were underway to upgrade some Health facilities like Chapananga and Makhuwira to community hospitals so that in times of disasters they should be able to provide all the required services.
MRCS’s Director of Programs, Prisca Chisala, said her has worked tirelessly to support the Ministry of Health especially the DHO through soft and hardware interventions.”So, in terms of the software, we have worked with the DHO in mobilizing the community to come and receive Covid-19 vaccine.
We did notice that after the Tropical Storms, a lot of systems under the health sectors were affected in one way or another.”Again on issues of Covid-19 among the several interventions on combating Covid-19 were affected. And as an organization, what we have been doing is to support the DHO with logistics where mainly we look at the maintainance of vehicles to be able to provide the needed support towards vaccine provision especially in hard to reach areas,” said Chisala.
