Opinion / Columnist
UK based Zim Doc launch skills support network - in horse Boxer mould!
15 Sep 2015 at 19:46hrs | Views
A Zimbabwean doctor has launched an organization to make it easy for Zimbabweans in the diaspora to share their expertise with those back home. The organization will help remove Zimbabwe's red-tape demand for professionals to be registered in the country for them to practise in the country.
Dr Sylvester Nyatsuro, who runs a medical centre in Nottingham, said the Zimbabwe Diaspora Skills Network (ZDSN) was inspired by challenges he faced when trying to help at local hospitals when he travelled to Zimbabwe.
"If in the spirit of giving back, these professionals would do a shift or two working with colleagues there, it will make a lot of difference," Dr Nyatsuro said.
"Sometimes there is no need to even do a shift but just sharing ideas with fellow professionals would help the country. Benefits would include benchmarking and quality improvements, technology sharing over and above the actual work done."
Here we go! We have an elephant in the room instead of driving the beast out Zimbabweans are expects at coming up with all manner of hare-brain schemes on how we can adopt and work round it. Not too be outdone by all the others before him, Dr Nyatsuro is come up with ZDSN!
35 Years of under-funding, mismanagement and corruption have turned even Zimbabwe's big hospitals like Mpilo and Parerenyatwa into dirty, decaying institutions not even worthy of the name hospital. Dr Nyatsuro knows that even if one ward in his Nottingham practice was found to be is a state comparable to what will find in Mpilo the whole practice will be shut down immediately. He will be very lucky if he will be ever allowed to work as a doctor in UK ever again!
So does our Dr Nyatsuro really think his hare-brain scheme will bring back Mpilo Hospital to its early 1980s heydays?
Tsuro (hare) in Zimbabwe culture is supposed to be a clever animal outwitting the slow think gudo (baboon) but it seems our Nya(tsuro) here is even worse than sloth. The root cause of Zimbabwe collapsed health and education systems, economy and everything else is the corrupt and oppressive Zanu PF dictatorship. For the last 35 years Zimbabweans have worked hard to make Zimbabwe prosper regardless of the wastefulness the Mugabe regime. The regime has responded by becoming even more wasteful confident the people will come up with ways to cope with its wasteful ways.
Give Mugabe an inch today and he will be back tomorrow asking for a foot, ten foot, a mile, ten miles, etc. After 35 years the criminal waste of resources the national economy has had it, it was just a matter of time before it collapse because not even the most resource rich and resilient economy is a bottomless pit!
By now it must have finally dawned on even the slow witted Zimbabweans amongst us that the nation will never prosper as long as the Zanu PF regimes is allowed to spend and waste resources as if there is an infinite supply of money, gold, diamonds, etc. By now it must have finally dawned on even the slow witted Zimbabweans amongst us that it does not matter how hard we worked and how much we suffered Mugabe and his cronies will never have enough to gratify their insatiable appetites for more power and wealth.
It is give a man fish and you give him a meal; teach him to fish and you give him a livelihood. But better still create the environment that allows him to think for himself and he will survive and thrive wherever he happens to be, after all we cannot all be fisherman and not all rivers are teaming with fish. Yes Zimbabwean want a meal, they want a livelihood but above all else they want an end to this parasitic political environment that has sucked all their energy, initiative and hope and forced them to live on scraps!
Zimbabweans have become accustomed to treating Mugabe as God's greatest gift to the nation and hence the reason why the nation Zimbabweans gone to extraordinary length to find solutions to the nations' many teething problems which will NOT inconvenience him in any way. This conditioning has reached nauseating levels we accept the absurdity of Mugabe spending $3 million per trip to get medical treatment in Singapore, in 2012 he made as many as 12 trips; whilst hospitals in the country are so starved of funds they cannot provide even the most mundane health service.
People like Dr Nyatsuro are offering the starving nation scraps; no doubt to feed the nation but, more significantly - whether they are aware of it - to ensure the Great Leader is NOT inconvenienced in any way.
The truth is Mugabe is just another fallible mortal like you and me and per se must be held to account for his 35 years of misrule. Of course it is absurd that the nation should be wasting $36 million on his health needs in one year when even a major hospital like Mpilo is so run down it is not fit to be an animal hospital. People like Dr Nyatsuro can collect used medical equipment being thrown away in his medical practice in Nottingham but more significantly he should be questioning why a major hospital like Parerenyatwa can be expected to function without something as basic as running clean water in this day and age!
Dr Nyatsuro; Zimbabwe's collapse health system will not be revived by you and a few others in the diaspora spending a few weeks working in the hospitals and clinics across the country. Zimbabwe has the resources and potential to be a wealth and prosperous nation with a healthy and well-funded health delivery system if only we stop the criminal waste of resources through mismanagement and corruption. If you are serious about helping Zimbabwe get out of this mess then confront the Zanu PF dictatorship behind the criminal waste with the seriousness and urgency the matter demands.
It is this "I will work harder!" mentality of Boxer the horse in George Orwell's Animal Farm that has got Zimbabwe into political and economic hell and, unless we break this mould and start to think outside the box, we will never ever get us out of this hell!
End the Zanu PF waste of resources; there is no reason why any hospital in Zimbabwe should not be a centre of excellence on par with Nottingham Royal Infirmary or any other Hospital anywhere in the World! Zimbabweans need a helping hand so they can stand up on their own feet again more than they need charitable hand-outs which will only serve to perpetuate their poverty and dependence.
Dr Sylvester Nyatsuro, who runs a medical centre in Nottingham, said the Zimbabwe Diaspora Skills Network (ZDSN) was inspired by challenges he faced when trying to help at local hospitals when he travelled to Zimbabwe.
"If in the spirit of giving back, these professionals would do a shift or two working with colleagues there, it will make a lot of difference," Dr Nyatsuro said.
"Sometimes there is no need to even do a shift but just sharing ideas with fellow professionals would help the country. Benefits would include benchmarking and quality improvements, technology sharing over and above the actual work done."
Here we go! We have an elephant in the room instead of driving the beast out Zimbabweans are expects at coming up with all manner of hare-brain schemes on how we can adopt and work round it. Not too be outdone by all the others before him, Dr Nyatsuro is come up with ZDSN!
35 Years of under-funding, mismanagement and corruption have turned even Zimbabwe's big hospitals like Mpilo and Parerenyatwa into dirty, decaying institutions not even worthy of the name hospital. Dr Nyatsuro knows that even if one ward in his Nottingham practice was found to be is a state comparable to what will find in Mpilo the whole practice will be shut down immediately. He will be very lucky if he will be ever allowed to work as a doctor in UK ever again!
So does our Dr Nyatsuro really think his hare-brain scheme will bring back Mpilo Hospital to its early 1980s heydays?
Tsuro (hare) in Zimbabwe culture is supposed to be a clever animal outwitting the slow think gudo (baboon) but it seems our Nya(tsuro) here is even worse than sloth. The root cause of Zimbabwe collapsed health and education systems, economy and everything else is the corrupt and oppressive Zanu PF dictatorship. For the last 35 years Zimbabweans have worked hard to make Zimbabwe prosper regardless of the wastefulness the Mugabe regime. The regime has responded by becoming even more wasteful confident the people will come up with ways to cope with its wasteful ways.
By now it must have finally dawned on even the slow witted Zimbabweans amongst us that the nation will never prosper as long as the Zanu PF regimes is allowed to spend and waste resources as if there is an infinite supply of money, gold, diamonds, etc. By now it must have finally dawned on even the slow witted Zimbabweans amongst us that it does not matter how hard we worked and how much we suffered Mugabe and his cronies will never have enough to gratify their insatiable appetites for more power and wealth.
It is give a man fish and you give him a meal; teach him to fish and you give him a livelihood. But better still create the environment that allows him to think for himself and he will survive and thrive wherever he happens to be, after all we cannot all be fisherman and not all rivers are teaming with fish. Yes Zimbabwean want a meal, they want a livelihood but above all else they want an end to this parasitic political environment that has sucked all their energy, initiative and hope and forced them to live on scraps!
Zimbabweans have become accustomed to treating Mugabe as God's greatest gift to the nation and hence the reason why the nation Zimbabweans gone to extraordinary length to find solutions to the nations' many teething problems which will NOT inconvenience him in any way. This conditioning has reached nauseating levels we accept the absurdity of Mugabe spending $3 million per trip to get medical treatment in Singapore, in 2012 he made as many as 12 trips; whilst hospitals in the country are so starved of funds they cannot provide even the most mundane health service.
People like Dr Nyatsuro are offering the starving nation scraps; no doubt to feed the nation but, more significantly - whether they are aware of it - to ensure the Great Leader is NOT inconvenienced in any way.
The truth is Mugabe is just another fallible mortal like you and me and per se must be held to account for his 35 years of misrule. Of course it is absurd that the nation should be wasting $36 million on his health needs in one year when even a major hospital like Mpilo is so run down it is not fit to be an animal hospital. People like Dr Nyatsuro can collect used medical equipment being thrown away in his medical practice in Nottingham but more significantly he should be questioning why a major hospital like Parerenyatwa can be expected to function without something as basic as running clean water in this day and age!
Dr Nyatsuro; Zimbabwe's collapse health system will not be revived by you and a few others in the diaspora spending a few weeks working in the hospitals and clinics across the country. Zimbabwe has the resources and potential to be a wealth and prosperous nation with a healthy and well-funded health delivery system if only we stop the criminal waste of resources through mismanagement and corruption. If you are serious about helping Zimbabwe get out of this mess then confront the Zanu PF dictatorship behind the criminal waste with the seriousness and urgency the matter demands.
It is this "I will work harder!" mentality of Boxer the horse in George Orwell's Animal Farm that has got Zimbabwe into political and economic hell and, unless we break this mould and start to think outside the box, we will never ever get us out of this hell!
End the Zanu PF waste of resources; there is no reason why any hospital in Zimbabwe should not be a centre of excellence on par with Nottingham Royal Infirmary or any other Hospital anywhere in the World! Zimbabweans need a helping hand so they can stand up on their own feet again more than they need charitable hand-outs which will only serve to perpetuate their poverty and dependence.
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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