Speaking in an interview with The Zimbabwean, the Deputy Minister of Health, Douglas Mombeshora, acknowledged a widespread lack of health facilities on the farms.
“If you go where former commercial farmers used to do business, there are a few clinics. In those areas, a lot of women deliver in their homes on the compounds,” Mombeshora said.
The deputy minister said around 40 percent of women in Zimbabwe were delivering at home due to a poor health delivery system in peri-urban and rural areas.
“From the statistics that we have, 60 percent of our women are delivering in health institutions, so maybe 40 percent are still delivering at home and that is quite a high figure,” Mombeshora said.
Change in farm ownership has restricted access to housing, schools, clinics and safe water.
Where a farm owner has been evicted, the running and maintenance of the school and payment of the teaching staff often ceases, leading to the school’s closure. Most early child education centres have also been closed down.
Mombeshora said there were a number of factors contributing to home deliveries in Zimbabwe.
“These include accessibility to health facilities and user fees. Obviously, we need to have more health facilities and more health workers,” Mombeshora said.
Like other social groups, farm workers have been vulnerable to the HIV-AIDS epidemic and resources are very limited.
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