BY PATRICIA SIBANDA UNITED Bulawayo Hospital, one of Zimbabwe’s major hospitals designated to admit COVID-19 patients in Matabeleland has run out of oxygen, which is critical for patients affected by the pandemic. UBH chief executive, Narcicious Dzvanga yesterday told the Southern Eye that the health facility was facing an erratic supply of the important commodity in the fight against the pandemic. “We have a tank that can take 10 000kg, but BOC Zimbabwe gas which supplies us only came and gave us only 4 000kg of gas which has already been used up. This simply means that it is not enough, we need more than that,” Dzvanga said. He said the hospital is operating at a 50% rate ever since it was opened. “We are operating at 50% capacity and we need about US$9 million to fully kit up the hospital. This figure is for the long term challenges that we might incur in the long run,” he said. “We are facing challenges here and there but there are still manageable hence, the budget that we are proposing is to allow ourselves to fully prepare in case there is a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases. We do not want to find ourselves wanting when there is a surge of cases.” He said they have proposed a solution to the Health ministry. “We have managed to take our proposal to the head office and we did that this week. We are therefore waiting for the response from them,” he said. Dzvanga recently said the hospital has a capacity for 150 beds, but the COVID-19 section has just 50 beds — raising more questions about Zimbabwe’s preparedness to deal with a virus which had killed 879 people by Wednesday, with 733 new infections reported. UBH, one of Zimbabwe’s biggest referral hospitals, is the designated COVID-19 centre in south-western Zimbabwe and it was drafted after Thorngrove Infectious Diseases Hospital stopped taking patients. Zimbabwe is in the grip of a second wave of COVID-19, which doctors suspect is fuelled by a new strain of the virus first detected in South Africa early this year. The new strain spreads faster, according to scientists, although researchers are trying to establish if it also leads to higher mortality. Dzvanga also said the Old Bartley Memorial Block which has been closed off for COVID-19 patients had to date received 142 patients since it got its designation on December 3 last year and of those, 102 recovered but 40 died. The hospital is admitting an average four patients per day, he said. ˜ Follow Patricia on Twitter @patriciasiband