Open letter to Ramaphosa

Greetings from Zimbabwe, Your Excellency.  I hope I find you in the best of health. Incidentally, this letter is all about health.

I, like so many others am grateful for the huge role that Zanu-PF and Zapu played in the liberation of our country through Zanla and Zipra respectively, a liberation that also quickly facilitated the liberation of South Africa through the ANC's Umkonto we Sizwe and Namibia's freedom through Swapo's armed wing, PLAN.

Our liberation movements will forever be one solid, united front against all forms of external aggression. Aluta continua.

Your Excellency, today I bring to you a special request on behalf of our leaders, the same leaders who liberated us almost 40 years ago.

As you are aware, our country has been going through a serious economic crisis caused by unjustified sanctions against our sovereign nation of Zimbabwe.

I am so happy that you at least are doing your best to have these sanctions removed as soon as possible. And when you pay your first official visit to our beloved country, we shall receive you with open arms.

My humble request is related to the recent incident where some misguided Zimbabweans, domiciled in South Africa, saw it fit to abuse your hospitality by making monkey noises outside Cape Town's Groot Schuur Hospital ostensibly to force the hospital authorities to remove our ill vice president, Constantino Guveya Chiwenga, whom they thought was receiving attention there. But he was not.

Our leaders deserve the best care possible out there because of the demanding nature of their jobs.

We certainly cannot risk their lives with mediocre medical attention.

 That is why they now fly out of the country to get specialist treatment, whatever it takes.

Our parlous hospitals are in such a sorry state that some medical staff have resorted to using condoms as gloves.

Medical staff is always on strike for better wages.

All the major hospitals are so under-equipped, patients are sometimes referred elsewhere.

Even the food leaves a lot to be desired.

Drugs are either in short supply or are expired.

Mortuaries are overcrowded as relatives cannot afford to claim bodies of loved ones.

As I write, those patients who don't want to pay their medical bills after being discharged are detained in the hospitals by the hospital authorities.

They want to leave without even paying a cent, imagine!

Are these the medical facilities that our leaders should be treated in?

A resounding NO! What would the world think of us, a sovereign nation?

I beseech you, Your Excellency, to consider the following request.  

Please build a hospital that will exclusively give the best medic treatment available to our leaders.

Instead of chartering expensive jets to be flown to places like India, they could be flown in these jets straight to this hospital.

If a new hospital cannot be built, at least consider setting aside one hospital with modern facilities exclusively for the benefit of our leaders, their immediate family members, and other close relatives.

This can be a government-to-government thing.  

The patients currently being treated in that hospital can then be treated elsewhere.

If the need arises, the hospital can also accommodate other African leaders when they fall sick.

This is what African solidarity is all about. Pan Africanism, nay, Ubuntu, at its best.

Let's shame our detractors once and for all! I pray that you will consider my humble request.

I remain yours sincerely in solidarity

A very humble and patriotic Zimbabwean.