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Socialist Party (SP) president, Fred M’membe, says the rise in cholera deaths and cases signifies a collapsing healthcare system in the country.
As of Saturday, January 6, 2024, Zambia National Public Health Institute (ZNPHI) revealed that cholera had claimed 195 lives out of 5,071 patients since it broke out in Zambia.
M’membe said this after donating Chlorine to residents of Lusaka’s Garden Compound on Saturday afternoon.
He stated that President Hakainde Hichilema who was appointed in May 2022 at the World Health Assembly, in Geneva, Switzerland, as Global Cholera Control Champion, should resign because he had failed in this area.
“The 2024 National Budgets has remained silent on financing the Multi-Sectoral Cholera Elimination Plan which was launched in 2019,” M’membe noted.
He said the Parliamentary Committee on Energy, Water Development and Sanitation analysis of the 2024 National Budget noted that as a share of the total budget, the allocation to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) had dropped from 1.4 percent in 2023 to 1.3 percent in 2024, continuing a downward trend that began in 2021.
The SP president said the government’s decreasing investment in WASH relative to the overall budget and other priorities was inconsistent with its stated goal of improving WASH services.
M’membe said it was heartbreaking to see people dying helplessly due to excessive congestion in health care facilities.
“What we are seeing now is indicative of a health care system, which is on the verge of collapse. Let Hichilema come out in the open and admit that he has failed to manage the cholera situation in the country, especially in Lusaka,” he said.
M’membe noted that the cholera outbreak had worsened owing to government’s failure to heed calls from stakeholders in the WASH sector to increase the budgetary allocation, which had been declining yearly.
The SP President said with proper planning and mobilization of resources, the cholera situation would have been contained within a few weeks.
“In 2018, several stakeholders came on board and mobilized resources to help the government manage the cholera situation. So why are we failing to do this now?” he said.
M’membe urged citizens to practice good hygiene such as washing hands with soap, eating warm food, keeping the surroundings clean, and drinking treated or boiled water, and avoid large gatherings where possible.
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