Taking advantage of her parliamentary recess in the province of Haut-Katanga, Senator Francine Muyumba went to the Jason Sendwe general reference hospital in Lubumbashi. On the spot, this local elected official says that she finds that this public health establishment is experiencing enormous operational difficulties due to a lack of subsidy from the Congolese government.
“To date, the hospital needs $150,000 in subsidies for its operation and $20,000 for the acquisition of pharmaceutical products. The patients lack medicines and the agents are not paid, ”says Senator Francine Muyumba.
And to add:
“The province of Haut Katanga contributes a lot to the budget of the central power at a time when its population is abandoned in misery. Without involving the provincial government or consulting trade unionists, the central government decided to privatize the hospital, exposing more than 500 hospital workers to unemployment and wanting to leave the poorest population without access to health care”.
For Francine Muyumba, the central government must subsidize the Sendwe hospital, because this denier is a public institution dependent on it or simply hand over its management to the province.
For their part, trade unionists, hospital staff and the people of Haut-Katanga oppose the decision of the Ministry of Public Health, Hygiene and Prevention to hand over the management of this hospital to Maison Pungwe establishments (Saint Joseph and Saint Raphael Diagnostic Center). For them, this decision privileges the private interest to the detriment of the public interest.
“Sendwe hospital trade unionists denounce with the utmost energy such a decision which practically violates the right and freedom enshrined and protected by our constitution of the Republic in these articles 47, 50, 56 and 60. The same constitution goes further in its article 36 that work is a sacred right and duty for every Congolese. The State guarantees the right to work, protection against unemployment and fair and satisfactory remuneration guaranteeing workers and their families”, denounce the trade unionists in a memorandum.
A large part of the hospital already rehabilitated with complete equipment but remains closed without being used, of which some equipment would start to deteriorate. The agents and the population demand its reopening to meet the needs of the population of Haut-Katanga
