The residents of Cazenga, in Luanda, are increasingly distressed by the level of degradation of the access road to the Cazenga Municipal Hospital, also known as the “Somague” hospital, which has been inoperative for months, and whose degradation spreads week after week, creating numerous difficulties for patients and hospital staff, who want the Government to rehabilitate that road as soon as possible, because they fear that one day the hospital will close its doors.
Several serious patients are carried on their laps to reach that hospital unit because the holes and standing water on the road prevent the access of vehicles and motorbikes, hence the residents cry out for urgent intervention. The small rains that Luanda has recorded in recent days have left that road more flooded, with pestilential waters that even invade the hospital’s backyard, making it even more difficult for users and employees to access it, Novo Jornal found.
However, rats and mosquitoes have taken over the Cazenga Municipal Hospital due to the stagnant water that is at the door of this reference health unit in that municipality. The administration of Cazenga, through its deputy administrator for the technical area of the administration, Madalena Fernando, said in August that the administration was already working on the survey of the degraded section and that “in due course” it would intervene in it.
According to the deputy administrator, the technical team visited the site and studies are continuing to carry out a definitive work, but the official acknowledged that the work to be done on that section must be deep. While that section is not intervened, patients and users, as well as employees, continue to circulate with great difficulty to access the hospital.
According to residents, who are worried due to the onset of the rains, which is already taking away their sleep, the section urgently needs to be intervened to avoid the worst. Novo Jornal found that to get to the door of the “Somague” hospital, the user must do so on foot, and very carefully, so as not to step on the still and filthy water. A source from the municipal health directorate of Cazenga, who did not want to be identified, confided to Novo Jornal that they have already reported the difficulties of the “Somague” hospital to the municipal administration.
According to the source, the Cazenga Municipal Hospital is not at risk of closing its doors, because soon they will have as an alternative the road that will connect the Asa Branco Market to the “Red Earth”, whose works are proceeding at a good pace.
Sources from the municipal administration of Cazenga, when contacted by Novo Jornal, preferred not to address the subject, claiming that the new municipal administrator, Nádia Neto, is still verifying the problems of the municipality.