By Martin Chiwanda and Mike Nambwale

Machinga, September 21, Mana: The delivery of health services in Machinga district’s nine health centres will improve following the commencement of rehabilitation works at these centers.

This follows government allocation of K947 million to Machinga Council for the renovation of health works in the district.

Machinga District Director of Health and Social Services Jones Chise, said on Friday the rehabilitation of the health facilities in the district will improve the quality of service delivery to the citizenry.

Chise said those that are being rehabilitated are the ones that have issues of maternity, water accessibility and under five infrastructures among others.

He said that they were having challenges in the delivery of services in health centres because of the infrastructure as they were not in good shape.

"The purpose of the rehabilitation works is to improve health service delivery within the district. We considered how we provide our services to pregnant women, under-five children but also those who come with various issues in our outpatient department, hence we chose the nine which had problems with that."

One of the health centers to be renovated is the Machinga Health Center which is operating in the old offices of the district council.

Akuzike Mkalie, Machinga health facility in charge, said the rehabilitation works at the center will address the challenges they used to face like shortages of working space.

He said: "This is going to address quite number of challenges we used to face before this project was approved. Prior to this, we used to have limited rooms such that other crucial services were not being offered but now we will have plenty of space hence we will offer services that were not offered."

Traditional authority Nkula whose center falls under his area, said was happy with the development as some rooms will be conditioned to the standards in delivery of quality health services.

He further added that he will make sure that the rehabilitation work goes according to plan and without any setbacks.

"I am happy because the centre is in a small space house, and I asked for consideration on our health centre and finally it has been considered. I will make sure that the project goes well and also this project will provide opportunity to our youths who will be employed and thereby be able to develop themselves," he said.

Currently, the contractors have been handed over to five health facilities namely Machinga District Hospital where a TB ward is to be rehabilitated, Machinga Health Center and Mlombwa Health Center with funds amounting to K99.7 million, K144 million and K44 million respectively.

The rehabilitation works are expected to be completed within the space of two months.