Technological innovations are generally applauded for making life easier and reducing the time spent on tasks, for e-Health technology recently introduced by the city of Bulawayo — the opposite is true. Under normal circumstances, Patience Moyo (not her real name) would not be detained for more than two hours at a council clinic located in Bulawayo’s central business district. Moyo has been collecting her Anti-Retroviral (ARV’s) supplies from the same clinic after every three months for the past 5 years since she was diagnosed with HIV.
Even on days when she has to first undergo viral load testing (VLT) every 6 months, when she visits the clinic for ARV re-supplies, the service has been seamless without any delays. Not until recently, she says. On Monday, Moyo spent almost eight hours at the clinic before being attended to as a result of delays linked to an e-patient management system recently introduced by the Bulawayo City Council (BCC).
“I arrived around 6.30 a.m but it’s already after lunch. I am tired and hungry and my worry is that the clinic will close for the day before they serve us,” she tells The Citizen Bulletin reporter.
“In other days before this e-registration, it would be a walk-in walk-out experience not what we are experiencing now,” Patience Moyo, an HIV patient.
When COVID-19 hit the country, the local authority minimised the time spent by patients at its facilities to curb the spread of the global pandemic. The Council then rolled out e-Health covering a wide range of healthcare services delivered through Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) such as electronic health records (EHRs). According to authorities, this is in line with the city’s vision – A Leading, Smart and Transformative City by 2024. The EHR programme was initially planned to be implemented around March but the process was suspended till October due to COVID-19 response restrictions. BCC received the Network equipment for the Electronic Health Records (EHR) program from America Centre for Disease Control (CDC) through ICAP (formerly the International Centre for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs) in February 2020.
