The PSMAS drama if it remains ignored has potentially catastrophic complications so grave than most natural and manmade health disasters.
Is it palatable that these hardworking doctors at various PSMI facilities dotted around the country have gone for so long without remuneration when the same company affords the luxury of hefty advances to the minister of health? Does it not stink to live with the fact that the advance paid to the increasingly dishonorable minister of health could have paid almost thirty three doctors their monthly dues?
The failure to address the rot at PSMAS with the urgency it deserves is a clear indicator that the two relevant line ministers either lack capacity to address the challenges or they are part of the problems at PSMAS. Zimbabwe boasts of some of the best trained doctors in the continent thanks to the education policy spearheaded by His Excellency, President Mugabe since the historic defeat of colonialism and the apartheid Smith Regime. The manner in which health professionals continue to be treated in post colonial Zimbabwe as typically exemplified by this PSMAS saga is an affront and aversion to the noble intentions of our pro poor policies on health and education. I maintain that a country with such a pathetic doctor to patient ratio must be the last to have headaches on doctors’ remuneration despite the limited fiscal and corporate financial envelope.
The sad and retrogressive events that continue to unfold in the ministry of health must definitely be a wakeup call on the extent of shortsightedness of our Minister of health. Is it that he is preoccupied with renegotiating further perks in the name of capitation or is it that he has become totally disconnected from the same critical issues he was appointed to address and advance as outlined in our economic blueprint.
In my little wisdom it is now inevitable that the doctors in private practice and their colleagues in government hospitals will soon join hands to politely ask the irresponsive minister of health to leave office. Government doctors and nurses have since been mobilizing for a nationwide petition to call for the urgent relief from office of Dr Parirenyatwa after his infamous implication in the one man capitation scandal a few weeks ago. Can the nation continue to afford to soil its image in the wake of a world renowned ICASA conference simply to protect a health minister who has failed to deliver?
We challenge our patriotic leaders that it’s time to make hard decisions in order to protect our citizens from further unwarranted neglect, abuse and unnecessary exposure to the vagrants and whims of disease through gross inaction and illicit underhand dealings by the relevant ministers. The right to health as enshrined in section 76 of our new constitution will remain a pipeline dream should we leave a blind captain to steer the nation’s important health ministry!
This article was written by Dr Fortune Nyamande and he writes in his personal capacity. Dr Nyamande is the current President of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association.
Post published in: Featured