Ntcheu District Hospital medical officer Dr William Chimsanga says the facility is struggling to meet transport demands due to lack of resources, including shortage of ambulances.

He said this on Saturday after Blantyre-based garage K Motors and eatery Kips Restaurant handed over a repaired ambulance to the hospital.

 The repaired ambulance

Chimsanga said out of the 10 ambulances the hospital has only four are functional.

He added that they were forced to withdraw some ambulances assigned to various health facilities due to high cost of fuel.

Said Chimsanga: “To service a catchment population of 800 000 with four ambulances is a huge challenge. Our hospital is along the M1 and near the M5, which means we have to attend to road accidents happening on these roads.

“Again, each referral case from Ntcheu District Hospital to Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe requires about K120 000 to purchase fuel. Sometimes in a day we can make three referrals.”

K Motors director Mansoor Karim said they plan to repair a second ambulance at the facility.

“We have carried out the same exercise for other districts. As we speak, we are repairing two ambulances from Mwanza District Hospital which we expect to deliver soon,” he said.

Kips Restaurant managing director Waseen Giga said being a Malawian brand, they see the initiative as a way of giving back to the community

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