Almost every day, Mumba, who is HIV-positive, and has been placed on indefinite sick leave by his employer, makes the roughly six-kilometre trip from the middle-income suburb of Hatfield to the city centre, where he joins hundreds other people jostling to withdraw the maximum Z$500,000 – worth less than US$2 – from his bank. Last week the maximum amount an individual could withdraw was only Z$50,000 or US20 cents. A month’s supply of ARVs can cost up to Z$20 million (US $50).
“When the maximum withdrawal limit was $50,000 I stopped coming to the bank because that was the amount that I needed to travel into the city centre,”
he told IRIN/PlusNews.
“I am on a cocktail of antiretroviral [ARV] drugs that should be taken after eating. However, I am sometimes forced to take my medication on an empty stomach because I would have failed to withdraw enough money for food. The little that I sometimes manage to keep spare is spent on food items that are hardly nutritional, and I guess that is the reason why my condition keeps on deteriorating.”
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has introduced a system that allows patients to apply to their banks for bigger amounts of cash to buy medication. Some patients have benefited from the scheme, but Mumba complains that the application takes long to be processed and, when approved, the banks give them the money in small amounts.
He has “enough money in the bank to buy medication for six months, but it is painful that I am slowly degenerating simply because I cannot take out as much of it as I need”.
Tonderai Chiduku, advocacy coordinator for the Zimbabwe National Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS, pointed out that “Nutrition is central to the longevity of the life of a person living with HIV and AIDS and even if one might have all the drugs needed, it would be difficult to keep in good shape.”
Taking drugs on an empty stomach because one could not afford food caused side effects that might lead to patients defaulting on ARV treatment, he warned.
Post published in: News