Minister condemn 50 year old Chiredzi ward - it is regime that is not fit for purpose

Dr Parirenyatwa condemns Chiredzi General Maternity Ward as unfit for purpose.
 
 "We agree that Chiredzi Hospital does not have a maternity ward. The maternity ward is one of the buildings which we have condemned. It was built in 1967 by the Rhodesians to cater for a few people but we now see an overcrowded building which is unsafe for the mothers and the new born," he said.

"Everything is being done in one ward, that is pre- natal, post and neo natal services, in-fact there are three groups of mothers under one roof and that is not safe. We need a new maternity ward urgently and I call upon local companies to assist with funding for the building of the new hospital through their corporate social responsibility programmes."

Zimbabwe's health delivery service was at its best 1980, when we attain our independence; from that point on it has been a matter of steady-she-goes match into decline. Mbuya Nehanda Maternity at Parirenyatwa Hospital, the biggest referral hospital in the country and named after the Minister's own late father, has been in a deplorable state for years. By the late 1980s the spotlessly clean floors was dirty with tiles missing and premature babies were dying unnecessarily because the hospital did not have enough incubators.

If a big hospital like Parirenyatwa does not have something as basic as an incubator one can only imagine what state rot and decay small backwater hospitals like Chiredzi General Hospitals must be in. For a regime that has presided over all this rot and decay and therefore has a very low tolerance level to condemn Chiredzi maternity ward; it must be because the ward is really in a mess.

What shocked me the most is that the Minister is calling on private sector to build a new ward! For a start, the Minister must be the only one in the country who does not know that the country's economy is in total meltdown; companies have been closing down right, left and center and the few still operating are in ICU. There is no private sector left to help build the ward!

Second and most significantly, the Minister must have heard the news that Zimbabwe had $15 billion looted from Marange diamonds alone in the last seven years. The story shows that the country is rich and therefore can afford to pay for the up keep of its essential services like health, education, etc. It has failed to do so because there is corruption and looting at a grand scale.

Leaders like Minister Parirenyatwa and even more so President Mugabe and his family have long ago stopped relying on the country's substandard health system. President Mugabe's daughter is right now in the Far East in the state of the art hospital to have her baby; she will be seen dead in Chiredzi Maternity Ward! We the ordinary people have no choice but to rely on this rotting and decaying health system because that is all we have and can afford.

It is up to us the people, we are the ones wearing the pitching shoe and not the leadership, to make sure we have a health system that is fit for purpose. By doing nothing to stop the rot and decay we the people and no one else condemned ourselves to having a health service, education service, power supply system, etc. that are in advance stages of rot and decay and in many cases are no longer fit for purpose.

If we are serious about restoring our health service, the economy, etc. back on a healthy footing then we must accept that we have a corrupt and wasteful regime that has long stopped serving the nation interests. If we want change then we must seek to replace this tyrannical regime which has long seized to be fit for purpose!