BOSTON – As Zimbabwe’s cholera epidemic spins "out of control," the
group Doctors Without Borders took the unprecedented step of of
criticizing President Robert Mugabe’s government.
The group’s president Christoph Fournier, who recently returned from
Zimbabwe, urged the government to provide "unrestricted access" for aid
organizations to carry out their work.
Zimbabwe’s health system has collapsed with government hospitals and
clinics closing despite people’s urgent need for care. Doctors Without
Borders (also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres) and other groups have
stepped in to help people cope with the emergency.
But Zimbabwe is restricting international aid, according to Doctors
Without Borders. The World Health Organization estimates that more than
87,000 people have been infected with cholera and nearly 4,000 have
died.
"The Zimbabwean government must respect independent assessments of
needs, guarantee that aid agencies can work wherever needs are
identified, and ease bureaucratic obstacles so that programs can be
staffed properly and drugs and other urgent medical supplies can be
imported quickly," Fournier said speaking to GlobalPost.
The doctors’ group has treated more than 75 percent of the cases in
Zimbabwe. Fournier complained that the Zimbabwean government has
imposed bureaucratic restrictions that have prevented the group from
setting up more treatment centers for suspected cholera cases.
Doctors Without Borders has called on the international aid community
to recognize that Zimbabwe’s cholera epidemic is only the most visible
sign of a health system that has collapsed.
"Zimbabwe is a country literally falling apart at the seams," Fournier said.
In addition to waiting three to six months to get a work permit,
Doctors Without Borders physicians and nurses are required by
Zimbabwean law to do a three to six month residency in the country
before doing any clinic work.
"They have to do this training for three months with a senior doctor, a
supervisor, in a hospital, which becomes a joke when you think that
many hospitals are closed and that senior doctors are usually not there
anymore,"
said Manuel Lopez, head of Doctors Without Borders’ Zimbabwe mission.
Beyond cholera, the health situation in Zimbabwe is increasingly desperate.
Clinics are often closed, medical staff have stopped showing up for
work, and medicine and supplies are becoming harder to obtain. Pregnant
women, according to Doctors Without Borders, are often forced to bring
their own drinking water and gloves in order to deliver in clinics,
since these items are not available.
Where medical treatment is still available, patients must pay in
foreign currency, as the country’s hyperinflation of 231 million
percent has rendered its currency effectively useless. Paying these
fees for health care is beyond the reach of most Zimbabweans.
"Many of them stay at home or die at home. So that’s the way it is. It gets as bad as that," Lopez said.
globalpost
Post published in: Analysis