By Joyce Mukucha
It is the responsibility of all health professionals in different hospitals to ensure that customer care is given to patients guaranteeing that they are treated with respect, courtesy and their esteem is preserved, a senior government official has said.
In his remarks during the Customer Care Championship Awards in Harare on the 30th of August 2019, the Minister of Child and Health Care Dr Obadiah Moyo stressed that customer care in the health delivery system entails key aspects such as staff members who are polite, friendly and helpful.
The awards were jointly hosted by Parirenyatwa Group of Hospital in conjunction with Chartered Institute of Customer Relationship Management, Consumer Council of Zimbabwe, and Chartered Institute of Customer Management with a number of winners appreciating and emulating the recognition.
He said it was his great honour to officiate such a unique occasion in the sense that it was the first time of witnessing real integration of customer care principles in patient care.
“For a long time, we have not had real efforts towards ensuring that patients and their relatives are treated as customers in a hospital. Never forget the characteristics of the key client which you serve at hospitals, the patient. They are in pain, they are desperate to get well, they can’t help themselves, they trust the health worker and they think are an emergency and much more. Their trust in the health worker is such that they are more than prepared to do what they are told by the health worker,” said Minister Moyo.
Health professionals from various departments who received awards were applauded by the minister and urged to continue leading by example of offering good customer service to patients.
“It is my hope that these awards will ensure that a customer care culture is indeed established and maintained in this premier health institution. I am very happy that today I am about to recognise men and women as well as departments who have refused to follow the example of others but have made themselves examples for others. I am really excited to present the awards to the champions of good customer care in this hospital. I want to see customer care continue taking centre stage in the way we handle patients,” he said.
Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, Minister Moyo said, was doing very well in terms of good customer service care and he emphasised that there was need to ensure that other health workers who were still presenting old harassing ways when attending patients were aligned with the rest so that patients would find reason to love and respect them.
The awards were extended to departments which include, brand ambassadors, managers and supervisors of the year and champions of customer care. Organisations such as Consumer Council of Zimbabwe, Zibuko Capital, Safel Insurance and BancABC among others also graced the occasion.
