Opinion / Columnist
Even the government's own excuses prove it's to blame for drug shortages in hospitals
11 hrs ago | Views
When incompetence runs deep, even your excuses end up exposing you.
The recent state-sanctioned explanation in The Sunday Mail on why public hospitals in Zimbabwe are running out of basic medication such as paracetamol reads more like a public relations damage-control exercise than a sincere account of governmental failure.
To directly receive articles from Tendai Ruben Mbofana, please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08
That the Ministry of Health and Child Care found it necessary to reassure the nation that medication is not unavailable but merely "delayed" due to bureaucratic hurdles reveals just how deeply out of touch this administration is with the lived realities of Zimbabweans.
How does one explain that in a country with a functioning Ministry of Health, National Pharmaceutical Company (NatPharm), and public hospitals, patients are still being asked to bring their own syringes, paracetamol, and bandages to health centres?
This is not a crisis of procurement.
It is a crisis of political will, administrative dysfunction, and wilful neglect.
In its rush to cover its tracks following President Emmerson Mnangagwa's surprise visit to NatPharm and some public hospitals, the Ministry's leadership has offered explanations that only reinforce what Zimbabweans have known for years: our public health system is broken not because of natural disasters or external shocks, but because of chronic mismanagement, corruption, and hollow governance.
It is both disturbing and insulting to the intelligence of ordinary Zimbabweans that the Ministry now seeks to deflect responsibility onto procedural "delays," Treasury disbursement schedules, and logistical issues like fuel and vehicle maintenance.
These are not new problems.
They are symptoms of a rot that has festered under the very noses of the same officials now feigning surprise.
If the government truly had stockpiles of essential drugs sitting at NatPharm, then what moral or administrative justification can there be for patients with asthma, hypertension, or diabetes going untreated at state hospitals?
What justification can there be for expectant mothers being turned away for lack of basic painkillers?
Yet, if these shortages are merely a matter of logistical or funding "delays," as the Ministry claims, then we must ask: when exactly do these medicines ever arrive?
A delay, by definition, implies that something is late - but that it eventually gets delivered.
But in Zimbabwe's public health institutions, we are not witnessing late arrivals.
We are witnessing chronic and enduring absences.
For decades, there has been a near-total and uninterrupted shortage of essential medications and basic hospital supplies - paracetamol, antibiotics, bandages, surgical gloves, sutures - none of which are expensive imports.
In maternity wards, expectant mothers are routinely given shopping lists that include everything from painkillers to surgical essentials, which they must bring with them on delivery day.
If these shortages were truly just occasional delays, it would not be standard practice for patients to supply their own essentials.
These are not delays.
These are permanent shortages institutionalized through government failure.
To call them anything else is to deliberately misrepresent reality and insult the suffering of ordinary Zimbabweans.
The claim that a new electronic logistics management information system (eLMIS) will solve these problems is laughably disingenuous.
This so-called "digital revolution" has been promised for years.
Yet, to date, the majority of public hospitals still rely on outdated paper records, manual ordering, and a bureaucratic labyrinth that renders the supply chain completely ineffective.
What happened to the funds that were already allocated to digitize this system?
Why are we still "rolling out" what should have been standard infrastructure a decade ago?
More fundamentally, the government's narrative is riddled with contradictions.
Why has the Auditor-General consistently flagged irregularities in public procurement and health funding, including millions unaccounted for in NatPharm's own operations?
This is not merely inefficient. It is criminal.
The silence on corruption in the Sunday Mail report is as loud as a siren.
Not one mention was made of the countless allegations of funds misused within the Ministry and NatPharm.
Not a word was said about tender manipulation, ghost deliveries, or inflated invoices - issues that have been raised not just by the Auditor-General but by independent investigations and health sector whistleblowers.
The theft of COVID-19 funds, exposed in 2021, is still fresh in public memory.
To pretend that the current crisis is purely logistical is a deliberate attempt to whitewash years of plunder and negligence.
The crisis also starkly exposes the government's over-reliance on donor support.
While donor-backed programs have kept HIV, TB, and malaria medications relatively available, non-communicable diseases - like hypertension, diabetes, and asthma - are orphaned.
These conditions do not attract global donor sympathy in the same way, and so they rely entirely on domestic health budgets.
Yet these are some of the most common and fatal illnesses in Zimbabwe today.
The Ministry's admission that these medicines are "often the first to run out" is not just an administrative failure - it is a death sentence for millions.
Where are the government's priorities?
Why must chronic disease patients be treated as second-class citizens in their own country?
At the heart of this problem is a profound failure of leadership.
It is not enough for the President to make surprise visits, or for Permanent Secretaries to grant interviews filled with buzzwords like "eLMIS" and "supply chain efficiency."
These are political performances designed to pacify the public and shift blame.
What Zimbabweans need is a functioning public health system - one where drugs are available not just in warehouses but at the point of care, where budgetary allocations are disbursed on time, where medical workers are adequately resourced, and where hospitals don't operate like destitute charities pleading for support.
The Zimbabwean Constitution, under Section 76, guarantees every citizen the right to basic health care.
The government is not doing us a favour by providing paracetamol - it is fulfilling a constitutional and moral obligation.
When that right is undermined, it is not just a policy failure; it is a breach of trust and legality.
And no amount of PR spin can paper over that fact.
Ultimately, what the Sunday Mail article exposes is the regime's enduring strategy: never accept responsibility.
Blame the system, blame Treasury, blame fuel shortages, blame paperwork - just never the people in charge.
This is the same script we have seen in education, the economy, power generation, and now health.
Zimbabweans are being asked to live in a country where failure is not only normalized but explained away as unavoidable.
That is unacceptable.
It is not Treasury delays that are killing patients in hospitals.
It is not poor scheduling that is denying the sick access to basic medication.
It is the failure of a government that has neglected the most vulnerable while prioritizing political survival, amassing wealth, and hollow slogans.
Zimbabweans deserve better than excuses.
They deserve leadership that delivers, not one that deflects.
And they deserve a health care system where the absence of paracetamol is not shrugged off as a bureaucratic glitch, but treated as the national crisis it truly is.
© Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/
The recent state-sanctioned explanation in The Sunday Mail on why public hospitals in Zimbabwe are running out of basic medication such as paracetamol reads more like a public relations damage-control exercise than a sincere account of governmental failure.
To directly receive articles from Tendai Ruben Mbofana, please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08
That the Ministry of Health and Child Care found it necessary to reassure the nation that medication is not unavailable but merely "delayed" due to bureaucratic hurdles reveals just how deeply out of touch this administration is with the lived realities of Zimbabweans.
How does one explain that in a country with a functioning Ministry of Health, National Pharmaceutical Company (NatPharm), and public hospitals, patients are still being asked to bring their own syringes, paracetamol, and bandages to health centres?
This is not a crisis of procurement.
It is a crisis of political will, administrative dysfunction, and wilful neglect.
In its rush to cover its tracks following President Emmerson Mnangagwa's surprise visit to NatPharm and some public hospitals, the Ministry's leadership has offered explanations that only reinforce what Zimbabweans have known for years: our public health system is broken not because of natural disasters or external shocks, but because of chronic mismanagement, corruption, and hollow governance.
It is both disturbing and insulting to the intelligence of ordinary Zimbabweans that the Ministry now seeks to deflect responsibility onto procedural "delays," Treasury disbursement schedules, and logistical issues like fuel and vehicle maintenance.
These are not new problems.
They are symptoms of a rot that has festered under the very noses of the same officials now feigning surprise.
If the government truly had stockpiles of essential drugs sitting at NatPharm, then what moral or administrative justification can there be for patients with asthma, hypertension, or diabetes going untreated at state hospitals?
What justification can there be for expectant mothers being turned away for lack of basic painkillers?
Yet, if these shortages are merely a matter of logistical or funding "delays," as the Ministry claims, then we must ask: when exactly do these medicines ever arrive?
A delay, by definition, implies that something is late - but that it eventually gets delivered.
But in Zimbabwe's public health institutions, we are not witnessing late arrivals.
We are witnessing chronic and enduring absences.
For decades, there has been a near-total and uninterrupted shortage of essential medications and basic hospital supplies - paracetamol, antibiotics, bandages, surgical gloves, sutures - none of which are expensive imports.
In maternity wards, expectant mothers are routinely given shopping lists that include everything from painkillers to surgical essentials, which they must bring with them on delivery day.
If these shortages were truly just occasional delays, it would not be standard practice for patients to supply their own essentials.
These are not delays.
These are permanent shortages institutionalized through government failure.
To call them anything else is to deliberately misrepresent reality and insult the suffering of ordinary Zimbabweans.
The claim that a new electronic logistics management information system (eLMIS) will solve these problems is laughably disingenuous.
This so-called "digital revolution" has been promised for years.
Yet, to date, the majority of public hospitals still rely on outdated paper records, manual ordering, and a bureaucratic labyrinth that renders the supply chain completely ineffective.
What happened to the funds that were already allocated to digitize this system?
Why are we still "rolling out" what should have been standard infrastructure a decade ago?
More fundamentally, the government's narrative is riddled with contradictions.
Why has the Auditor-General consistently flagged irregularities in public procurement and health funding, including millions unaccounted for in NatPharm's own operations?
This is not merely inefficient. It is criminal.
Not one mention was made of the countless allegations of funds misused within the Ministry and NatPharm.
Not a word was said about tender manipulation, ghost deliveries, or inflated invoices - issues that have been raised not just by the Auditor-General but by independent investigations and health sector whistleblowers.
The theft of COVID-19 funds, exposed in 2021, is still fresh in public memory.
To pretend that the current crisis is purely logistical is a deliberate attempt to whitewash years of plunder and negligence.
The crisis also starkly exposes the government's over-reliance on donor support.
While donor-backed programs have kept HIV, TB, and malaria medications relatively available, non-communicable diseases - like hypertension, diabetes, and asthma - are orphaned.
These conditions do not attract global donor sympathy in the same way, and so they rely entirely on domestic health budgets.
Yet these are some of the most common and fatal illnesses in Zimbabwe today.
The Ministry's admission that these medicines are "often the first to run out" is not just an administrative failure - it is a death sentence for millions.
Where are the government's priorities?
Why must chronic disease patients be treated as second-class citizens in their own country?
At the heart of this problem is a profound failure of leadership.
It is not enough for the President to make surprise visits, or for Permanent Secretaries to grant interviews filled with buzzwords like "eLMIS" and "supply chain efficiency."
These are political performances designed to pacify the public and shift blame.
What Zimbabweans need is a functioning public health system - one where drugs are available not just in warehouses but at the point of care, where budgetary allocations are disbursed on time, where medical workers are adequately resourced, and where hospitals don't operate like destitute charities pleading for support.
The Zimbabwean Constitution, under Section 76, guarantees every citizen the right to basic health care.
The government is not doing us a favour by providing paracetamol - it is fulfilling a constitutional and moral obligation.
When that right is undermined, it is not just a policy failure; it is a breach of trust and legality.
And no amount of PR spin can paper over that fact.
Ultimately, what the Sunday Mail article exposes is the regime's enduring strategy: never accept responsibility.
Blame the system, blame Treasury, blame fuel shortages, blame paperwork - just never the people in charge.
This is the same script we have seen in education, the economy, power generation, and now health.
Zimbabweans are being asked to live in a country where failure is not only normalized but explained away as unavoidable.
That is unacceptable.
It is not Treasury delays that are killing patients in hospitals.
It is not poor scheduling that is denying the sick access to basic medication.
It is the failure of a government that has neglected the most vulnerable while prioritizing political survival, amassing wealth, and hollow slogans.
Zimbabweans deserve better than excuses.
They deserve leadership that delivers, not one that deflects.
And they deserve a health care system where the absence of paracetamol is not shrugged off as a bureaucratic glitch, but treated as the national crisis it truly is.
© Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/
Source - Tendai Ruben Mbofana
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