Clean, Hot Water Installed at All eSwatini Clinics

Clean hot water the most basic health care tool until now unavailable at most government clinics

in impoverished eSwatini formerly known as swaziland.

Doctors say hand washing hygiene and sanitation are key to curbing the spread of illness.

Coronavirus has claimed nearly 700 lives in this nation of just over 1 million people.

In recent months a multinational initiative has supplied every public clinic in the country

with this precious tool by installing an outdoor solar-powered hand-washing station.

VOA asked eSwatini's acting prime minister what seems like an obvious question

why didn't the government do this before? why wait for foreign donors.

Well he replied it's not that easy for a cash-strapped government

with limited manufacturing capability and an unreliable electricity supply.

When the pandemic hit he said eSwatini struggled to acquire basic things like face masks.

One of the priorities was to build the clinics first because you can't put the stuff here without clinics.

As we were building the clinics as we have 92 of them now those public health facilities,

the stakeholders came in they wanted to assist and we greatly accepted that,

so everything is prioritized health is one of our major priorities

and this is why we thought building the clinics before we get the hot water would be ideal.

This clinic near the capitol sees 600 patients a week.

Nurse manager Lindy Magongo says they also use the hot water station to clean the clinic and brew tea for staff.

It also breaks what she described as a stigma around hand washing.

Whenever we wash hands it means we are going to eat going and washing hands all the time.

It's an African we we grow up knowing that it's an African to keep on washing hands why.

There's always that why do you keep on washing your hands.

So how do you break the taboo? how do you break that.

This is going to break it and covid 19 has also helped us in breaking that.

A year ago Australian solar energy entrepreneur Robert Frazier landed in eSwatini for two weeks of meetings.

Then the pandemic struck and as he sat in lockdown halfway across the world from home

he thought why not do something.

In that year his company with extra funding from the German government has installed

ninety two of these three thousand five hundred dollar stations.

It's simple and that's the point.

There was a very obvious need and we had the products we had the relationships the expertise

to actually deliver a project that would really make a difference in a very short amount of time

and actually to be frank for a reasonably small amount of money.

Frazier stresses that he's not running a charity they're a for-profit company

and this project has paved the way for a hundred million dollar solar storage project in eSwatini.

Health minister Lizzie Nkosi says hand hygiene is a key weapon against the virus

and one that eSwatini needs while it launches its mass vaccination campaign in coming weeks.

It's not only bringing hot water in places where would never have dreamt would have hot water

but is reinforcing age-old infection prevention measures that the ministry employs every time

whether we have an outbreak of measles or diarrhea outbreak.

Don't take clean hot water for granted she said in these challenging times eSwatini don't

Anita Paul voa news La Bamba eSwatini