Zapu concerned about major health crisis in Zimbabwe

Public hospitals have not recovered from the crisis that was experienced before 2009. There are still critical shortages of manpower combined with inadequate financial support from the government. As  a result the hospitals are operating well below capacity. A major public health crisis continues to be fuelled by lack of resources. The situation has gone from bad to worse as the few doctors available continue to be on strike and the government is doing nothing about it apart from paying lip service about resolving the crippling doctors' strike. Statements from the Health and Child Care minister Dr David Parirenyatwa threatening to fire the striking doctors are unhelpful as they do no address the underlying causative and perpetuating factors to the on-off strikes by healthcare workers. The ZANU PF regime continues failing to properly address the crisis at hand since they are not directly affected. They can afford to travel abroad to seek medical attention.

The Mugabe regime has just turned a blind eye on a time bomb as the senior doctors and specialists join the ongoing strike. The doctors have vowed to press on with the strike until all their concerns have been dealt with in their entirety as they are tired of the empty promises. At the heart of the healthcare crisis lies the economic turbulence that has been exacerbated by the floods that continue to cause havoc to man, beast, property and environment.  Continued rains around Zimbabwe have triggered emergencies with lives being claimed in the process. A sudden rise of disease like Typhoid has hit the country with records of about 1148 cases having been recorded within a short period of a month. Malaria taking the lead with 8 481 cases reported at last count.  There is also a dramatic rise in death rate as the epidemic disease claim up to 20 people within a week. One hopes the government will be ready to deal with the likely sequelae of cholera and other related diseases.

Major hospitals in the country have announced the shortage and running out of the critical drugs for  leading killer diseases in the country. These  can only be outsourced outside the borders as the country is not in a state of being able to manufacture some of these essential medicinal products. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe which is expected to intervene has indicated it will soon be closing all US  and South African Rand accounts,  replacing them with bond note packages  following indications of massive foreign currency shortages in the ailing  economy. How convenient it is that this is being done  at the time when the country is surviving only on  imports, especially medication that is urgently needed. Zapu will be piling more pressure on the Minister of Health and Child Care Department to do the right thing. This is not an easy task while our party is outside parliament. Still we cannot afford to keep silent while citizens are subjected to every conceivable torment both man-made and natural. A Zapu government would have contingency plans to deal with emerging crisis situations.

Nomathamsanqa Tholo is the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, ZAPU, Europe Province.

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