Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH)—the country’s main ophthalmic conditions referral facility—is failing to provide specialised eye surgery services to patients due to lack of equipment.

This is despite the Parliamentary Committee on Health successfully championing an initiative that raised K300 million to purchase specialised eye surgery equipment for the hospital over a year ago. The initiative only yielded results from Treasury.

KCH director Jonathan Ngoma confirmed that the absence of the equipment was affecting procedures that were supposed to be conducted at the facility.

“If we don’t have that equipment how do we help the patients? That means the patients are not being attended to so we rely on referrals to India, which is a very expensive venture for the country,” said Ngoma on Thursday.

Eye surgeries require specialised equipment

Currently, government spends over K400 million to send patients with eye problems to foreign hospitals, especially to India for surgeries.

Ngoma said KCH, just like other health facilities, has several eye specialists who were trained abroad but are failing to put their expertise into practice because of lack of required equipment.

“Most of our doctors were trained abroad for specialisation and are exposed to high-tech equipment but they cannot do anything because we don’t have the equipment. So, once this equipment comes we will undertake a lot of procedures right here.

“The principle behind sourcing the equipment is to reduce foreign referrals, so we want this equipment in the country as soon as possible,” he said.

KCH receives about 43 percent of patients with eye problems in the country annually.

But a year after the Ministry of Health awarded a contract to a South African-based medical equipment supplier—Envision Africa—to procure the equipment, the firm has failed to fulfil its contractual obligation.

In an interview on Wednesday, Ministry of Health spokesperson Adrian Chikumbe confirmed the development, saying government has since given the medical supplies firm until September to do so or risk termination of the contract.

Chikumbe said after getting a ‘No Objection’ order from Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA) to proceed with the purchase of the equipment, the supplier asked for more time as it had to order from another company in Germany where the equipment would be manufactured according to given specifications.

According to online searches, Envision Africa (Pty) Limited is a surgical ophthalmic distributor based in Johannesburg, South Africa and was incorporated in 2014.

When contacted by Weekend Nation on Wednesday, Envision Africa chief executive officer (sales and marketing) James Wright declined to give substantial details on the contract.

He said: “Thank you for reaching out to me, I don’t think I’m at liberty to divulge details of the contract. I suggest you contact the MoH [Ministry of Health] directly.”

But Parliamentary Committee on Health chairperson Matthews Ngwale expressed concern with the delays to deliver the equipment, saying his committee will be compelled to directly work with the ministry so that decisions are made jointly.

“We, actually, fought for that money as a committee to buy the equipment because we knew once we have it government will save a lot on referrals to India. We started the initiative because there are three conditions Malawians are referred abroad for. These are eye surgeries, heart surgeries for children and cancer treatment.

“So, we contacted several specialist doctors who came up with a list of things required for us, as a country, to stop relying on referrals or reduce  

 them considerably. After sourcing the K300 million from Treasury our view was once we are done with ophthalmology next should be heart surgery equipment for children,” said Ngwale.

Commenting on the matter, Malawi Health Equity Network (Mhen) executive director George Jobe cautioned government to be strict with contractual agreements concerning the health sector “because they affect people’s lives”.

“Such contracts need to have clauses that after a specific period, if a supplier fails to deliver, the contract should be given to other suppliers unless that supplier is the only one available on the market. But since we don’t have finer details of the contract, probably government is convinced that’s why it made the extensions,” said Jobe.

However, he appealed to government to come up with a bold decision should the firm fail again to meet its obligations “because these procurements are for the good of ordinary citizens and we need to move forward”.

Said Jobe: “Our appeal also goes to the suppliers of pharmaceutical and medical commodities or equipment because they are there to save lives as such they need to have a human heart. It is not only about business but also service to humanity.”

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