By Tovin Ngombe
Sinazongwe District Chairperson for Basic Schools Sports (BSS) has appealed to government to rescind its decision for withdrawing from funding School sports activities because it is hurting the game.

Oliver Mpile said for the past two years government has not been funding sports activities in Schools.
Mpile told ZANIS at the Sinazongwe BSS competitions at Kanchindu Basic Shool that the sports attire that pupils were using was bought at the time government was funding them.
He said Schools were not allowed to allocate grants they receive from government to any Sports activity.

Mr. Mpile said the Schools were only allowed to buy equipment for Physical Education (PE) because there was a presidential directive to do it.

“ For the past two years Schools in Sinazongwe have failed to buy sports attire because they been depending own there own fundraising ventures which was not enough to improve sports,” He said.

He said government’s withdrawal from funding was a drawback to the promotion of sports especially in rural areas where pupils had to be dragged for them to see the need of venturing into sports.

The BSS chairperson said teachers that were camping pupils to compete were doing it out of love for game because government was failing to supplement them with any subsistence allowance.
He said before teachers camped their pupils at Kanchindu Basic for five days they had again camped them for five days in their areas without any subsistence allowance.

He said the purpose for their having competitions at Kanchindu basic was to select a team that would compete at the provincial level and eventually at the national level.

Nkaddabwe Ward Councilor Partson Mangunje who was with the Schools through out the competition expressed disappointment at the parent’s failure to come to cheer their children.
Mr. Mangunje urged parents to be supporting their children to promote sports in the district.
He also made a passionate appeal to government to consider sponsoring sports in Schools if the country hopes to have future star players in all sports discipline.

ZANIS/TN/END

By Tovin Ngombe
The Provincial Health Director for Southern province has failed to contain confusions that has rocked Maamba Hospital for two months says Sinazongwe Movement for Mult-party Democracy Constituency (MMD)Chairperson.

Simon Chali said Maamba Hospital Administrator Cosmas Michelo, the alleged creator of the confusion was sent on 21 days forced leave for his frustrating health workers and threatening the life of Sinazongwe health Director, Dr Kebby Musokotwane.

Chali said Michelo who also beat up a guard on duty before he went on forced leave grabbed, Philip Botha the acting Hospital Administrator in the shirts to force him out of the office when bounced back at the hospital on Friday.

The Constituency Chairperson narrated that when Mr Michelo reported for work on Monday he has been standing outside the Maamba Hospital Administration offices for three days and yesterday he entered into his former office force Mr. Botha out of it

He said the Provincial Health Director Dr Alisheke who spent the whole day at Maamba hospital from 09:00 hours to 19:00 hours last Month failed to find a lasting solution.

“ The province should sort out this mess before the community react to it, Michelo beat the security guard, now he want to beat the Acting Hospital Administrator, we can’t have an individual brewing anarchy at the hospital ,” Chali said.

He said such conduct should not be tolerated and if the provincial health team thinks he was the best manager they should transfer him else where as community do not need his services anymore.
Chali noted that such people where undermining government efforts of improving health delivery to the people.
“We can not have one man fighting everybody at the hospital,” Chali noted.

However, at the time Dr Alisheke held a meeting with Mr. Michelo and Dr Kebby Musokotwane for the whole day he refused to talk to ZANIS about the decision he had made in the meeting and referred all queries to Ministry of health Spokesperson.

“I can not tell you the outcome of our meeting, if you want information talk to our Spokesperson, I can not disclose anything to you,” Dr Alisheke said while holding his hand in the pocket and looked irritated by the presence of the reporter.

Chali noted that after 21 days the health provincial office should have notified Dr Musokotwane on what to do when Michelo reported back but they decided to keep quiet when the issue was sensitive to many health workers.

By Tovin Ngombe:-

A team of Zambia Demographic Health Survey (ZDH) that was collecting blood samples, testing for HIV/AIDS and Sexual Transmitted disease have been ejected from the area they were to carry out the exercise in Sinazongwe district.

Sinazongwe District Health Director Dr Kebby Musokotwane confirmed the development.
Dr Musokotwane said two of the ZDH blood collectors were manhandled and the community refused to donate their blood.

But before the exercise begun Sinazongwe district health workers and ZANIS conducted a series of meetings with the village headmen, the Church, Non-governmental organization and the Councilor for Siamukululu area.

The response from the community was overwhelming and accepted the exercise to be carried out in their area.

Dr Musokotwane said misunderstanding could have arisen from the ZDH team’s failure to move to the area on time after the sensitisation campaign was done.

The ZDH team decided to come three months after the sensitisation campaign was done and when people had forgotten about the exercise.

The team also went straight into the area to conduct the exercise and refused to go with any of the Sinazongwe health workers who know the people they were to collect blood from and to test them for HIV/AIDS.

However, many people had predicated failure for the exercise because only K2.5 million was allocated for entire exercise in each district.

For Sinazongwe district the survey was actually in Choma area though the people in Siamukululu area access their health service in Sinazongwe district.

Staff shortages mar Sinazongwe district measles campaign
By Tovin Ngombe
The Measles campaign in Sinazongwe district has faced a serious shortage of trained personnel as some health posts that have been mounted were being manned by unqualified personnel proving doom to the success of the exercise.

The unqualified personnel were only trained in giving out Vitamina A supplementation and de-worming tablets.
A Check by ZANIS at Nangombe health post found that there were only four community workers were manning it when the initial plan was to have two trained health workers at each health post.
The community health volunteer Enerst Siakajika told ZANIS that a trained nurse would visit the centre on Friday to immunize the children.

At Munyati health post in Chief Sinazongwe area there was no trained nurse and the community workers had worked for two days without getting their lunch allowances.

Amos Malenga complained of being dumped in the area without any food while they were only administering Vitamin A and de-worming tablets.

Women who had traveled long distances with their children on the back were waiting for the nurse who had promised to pass through the centre to immunize their children in the late afternoon.

The community health workers at Munyati and several health posts were running out of the Vitamin A supplementation and the de-worming tablets and the cards to give mothers whose children were immunized were also running out.

In Makonkonto area most women talked to said they did know about the measles campaign.
A check at Sialwela clinic had only two people manning the station, Mupepula Mutanga who is an Environmental Health Technologist said some health post had not been opened because of the staff shortage and they had no transport to go round the community.

At Siansowa rural health Clinic there was only one trained health personnel attending to women who had lined up in long queues to have their children immunized.

On Monday when the exercise begun, there was no health post at Namafulu middle basic School which shares boundaries with Zimbabwe.

The teacher found at the School Ms Moono palata said some health officials promised to mount it on Tuesday.
Sinazongwe Health Director Dr Kebby Musokotwane confirmed that there has been a serious shortage of health personnel to cater for the entire district.

Dr Musokotwane has said the sitautiuon has led to shifting of staff from one health post to another and closing some health posts.
He said there was short supply of Vitamin A supplementation adding that orders were made from Choma district to contain the situation.