Thanks to President Robert Mugabe’s disastrous economic policies and the
effects of his chaotic land reform programme, 10 nappies now cost more than
an average annual salary for public sector workers here.
Supplies of fresh milk are erratic at this clinic. So is Dettol, bedclothes
and food.
And this is a private hospital, not the city-run ones where several babies
have died this month because of a lack of oxygen. There is no foreign
currency to import oxygen cylinders.
Once the envy of the region, Zimbabwe’s public health service is crumbling.
A tub of aqueous lotion costs as much as an office cleaner’s monthly wage.
Inflation – now running at 14,000 percent – is doing its worst. HIV and Aids
kill an estimated 3,000 people a week. Non-emergency operations have been
suspended in Bulawayo, the second city.
Zimbabwe needs 19,000 nurses: it has 4,000. There are four
gynaecologist-obstetricians left in Harare. The army has been brought in to
man hospitals this week.
Nurses and doctors – like teachers, engineers and magistrates – have joined
the great trek out of the country in search of more money, the promise of
pensions, and, in many cases, political freedom.
Eliza has been told to store a can of fuel ahead of “the day”. It’s illegal,
but everyone who can does it.
Eliza has a CIMAS medical insurance, which her husband is coughing out Z$39
million monthly.
She has failed to have a scan done because there is no paper to print the
photos.
“This is Zimbabwe, I’m afraid,” the doctor told her.
There are other worries to contend with. Will the hospital, threatened by
strikes over pay and mounting overheads, actually be open? What if there is
a power cut and there is need for a Caesarean?
Post published in: News