Eulogy for Dr Booker Kambarami - 15 August 2026 – Aged 76

There is a particular kind of doctor whose name never makes the headlines, but whose signature is written on thousands of lives.

Ask a Zimbabwean woman of a certain generation who delivered her children, and you will see it - a small, involuntary smile, and then his name: Dr Booker Kambarami.

Dr Kambarami died on 15 August 2026. On 23 August, the Ministry of Health and Child Care announced his passing. They called him a clinician par excellence and one of the pioneers who laid the foundation for specialist obstetrics and gynaecology in Zimbabwe. He was 76, and he gave more than fifty years to medicine.

He was born on 5 July 1950 in Murewa. He trained at the University of Rhodesia and graduated from the University of Birmingham in 1976, in the middle of a war. He did his residency at Harare Central, worked at West Middlesex in the UK, and qualified through the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists at a time when there were very few Black specialists in the field back home.

He could have stayed abroad. Many did.
In 1984, four years into independence, he came back.
Zimbabwe was building hospitals, but buildings alone cannot deliver babies at 3am. The country needed people who knew the difference between a slow labour and a dangerous one. For the next four decades, Dr Kambarami was that person.

He served in both public and private practice. He was a founding member of Belvedere Maternity Hospital - perhaps the most tangible thing he built for mothers in this city. Colleagues called him “Mr Perfect.” Not because he wanted praise, but because he refused to let a small thing slide. In his theatre, detail was a safety system.

His special interest was diabetes in pregnancy - quiet, difficult, high-risk work. It is the kind of work that sets the standard for a whole nation. The Ministry credits him with strengthening how Zimbabwe manages complicated obstetric cases.

But beyond the medicine, beyond the textbooks, there was the man.

He has left families with hope and a future.
When some had lost all hope of ever holding a child in their arms, Dr Kambarami restored that hope.

He was not only a gynaecologist. He took time to advise, to counsel, and to comfort couples. He saw us not as clients, not as files, but as desperate, vulnerable human beings.

Millions of children passed through his hands.
A man who gave life to millions has now rested.

Let me speak for just one family - because we are many.
After years of pain, after years of empty rooms and silent Christmases, we walked into his consulting room with tired hearts. We had been told “maybe not.” Dr Kambarami listened. He did not rush us. He explained, he prayed with us, he planned with us. And then came the day. The cry of a baby. The weight of a child in our arms. That day, grief turned to joy. Today, in our home, in our church, in our street, we are called by the name of our child. “Amai va Mazvita .” “Baba va Pearl.” Thanks to Kambarami.

Walk through any suburb in Harare and you will meet joyful parents like us. Parents who will tell you, with tears and laughter: “We met Dr Kambarami when we had no hope. We left with a future.”

The other half of his legacy walks around in scrubs.
He was a teacher and mentor. Generations of doctors learned their standards from him. In 2016, the Zimbabwe Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists honoured him for long and distinguished service. I suspect he found it a little embarrassing.

Dr Kambarami is survived by his wife, Professor Rose Agatha Kambarami; his children Washington, Donald, Mutsa and Anesu; his grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.

The Ministry extended condolences to the family, colleagues, students, patients, and the wider medical fraternity. They called him a distinguished son of Zimbabwe and a true giant of the medical profession.

There is a line in their statement that must outlive the statement itself:
“His legacy lives on through the many lives he saved, the families he cared for, and the health professionals he trained and inspired.”

That is the arithmetic of his life.
Not monuments. Not headlines.
Children who grew up.
Mothers who went home.
And doctors who still hear his voice when they are about to cut a corner - and don’t.

Dr Booker Kambarami gave life.
Today, we give him our gratitude.

May his dear soul rest in eternal peace.