By Kuda Pembere
Artisanal miners account for the majority of cases being admitted at the recently opened high dependency (HDU) unit for respiratory ailments at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, a specialist pulmonologist said.
The unit which has been operational for four months treats persons with pulmonary infections such as pneumonia, diabetic, diabetic ketoacidosis, COPD, silicosis, to mention but these.
Speaking to journalists during a tour of the unit, the head of the HDU Dr Felix Manyeruke said they are treating a lot of these artisanal miners popularly known as makorokoza in their unit.
“We’ve got bronchiectasis, which is affecting I think the majority of our patients, who are the artisanal miners, Makorokoza. So we take care of lots of patients who are affected by dust exposure while they are mining. These are the majority of patients we treat in this HDU with acute lung disease,” he said.
Dr Manyeruke also said they are seeing a large number of asthma cases at the unit.
“The burden of respiratory illnesses in Zimbabwe is high. Asthma is the most common condition. I think Zimbabwe is in the world, in terms of asthma deaths, we are number 40. That’s our contribution in terms of asthma deaths.
“So we’ve got lots of patients with respiratory disease. And most of these respiratory diseases occur at home. So, we’ve got asthma, it’s the most common respiratory illness and we do have lots of asthmatics here, but most of them do not, don’t make it to hospital. Most of them, some of them die when they get acute respiratory illness,” he said. “
Other diseases they treat include post COVID lung disease, post TB lung disease, and pulmonary fibrosis to mention but these.
“So, we offer, our services are both for the acute ill patient, but also offer an outpatient clinic where we spend most of our time.
“I think we run an asthma clinic on Tuesday. The respiratory is attending, we attend the asthma clinic on Tuesday. Also offer a general respiratory clinic on test dates, and also offer post-COVID care on Tuesday also.
“So, Tuesday is post-COVID care, asthma clinic, test dates, general respiratory conditions. So, we’ve got asthma, which is the most common condition, we’ve got COPD, which comes from various things, from smoking, biomass fuel exposure, so people who basically cook in closed huts.
“If you’re cooking in the closed hut and you don’t have a chimney, it was called biomass exposure and that causes COPD. You’ve got interstitial lung diseases, which means you’ve got a variety of them from your pulmonary fibrosis, NSIP, and you’ve also got post-TB lung disease.
“You’ve got a high burden of TB. So once those patients are treated for their TB, they’ve got residual lung damage that persists. They get bronchiectasis. They get small areas of damage, they get tracheal obstruction, and they get lots of various things that happen to their lungs,” Dr Manyeruke said.
Dr Manyeruke also said they are in the process of setting up a simulation lab for the training of junior doctors in various pulmonary health procedures.
“And we’re going to set up what’s called a simulation lab here. So, he’s brought up lots of models to help train people.
“So we train people in both adult and pediatric models to do intubation, to do this cardiopulmonary resuscitation, to do pleural procedure,” he said. “So the lungs are in the chest wall. So, you can sample the lungs from the airway using a bronchoscope. We can sample them by going through the pleural and through the chest wall.”
The 20th China medical team captain who is a pulmonologist Dr Ou Yang said the establishment of the respiratory centre would help improve health outcomes for many Zimbabweans.
“The cooperation between Hunan People’s Hospital and Parirenyatwa is a significant step to help bring health care to the people. We are donating equipment to Parirenyatwa to build a new respiratory unit. There are good doctors at Parirenyatwa but there is a lack of equipment to serve more patients here so we are here to help cure diseases and we can save more people,” he said.
The Health and Child Care Minister Dr Douglas Mombeshora last week received US$500 000 worth of respiratory health equipment and consumables from the Chinese Government for use at Parirenyatwa Hospital.
“We are very grateful for the equipment that has been donated, but the equipment, most of it is going to the respiratory center that is being established in Parirenyatwa Hospital.
