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Africa News of Saturday January 30, 2021
Source: reuters.com
2021-01-30
Zimbabwe’s health system has been collapsing for years
When the rich and powerful in Zimbabwe get sick, they often go abroad in search of the best treatment money can buy; Fallen President Robert Mugabe died in a Singapore hospital in 2019.
With travel limited by the coronavirus, that luxury is unavailable, exposing the elite to a truth the majority have long known: Zimbabwe’s healthcare system has been collapsing for years and now struggles to cope at a peak in COVID-19 cases.
Anger among overwhelmed doctors adds to the wider public discontent with President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who pledged an economic boost after taking over from Mugabe following a coup in 2017.
“This is a wake-up call for the government and the politicians,” said Norman Matara, secretary general of the Zimbabwe Association of Physicians for Human Rights.
“If you have decades of continued destruction of your public health system, and now you have a pandemic, you cannot reverse that degradation … in a year or in six months.”
Zimbabwe’s economy was in crisis even before the coronavirus hit, after years of hyperinflation, severe currency shortages and blackouts.
He now has to deal with a surge in the pandemic. More than half of Zimbabwe’s 32,646 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and two-thirds of its 1,160 deaths were recorded in January alone, according to a Reuters tally.
Vice President Constantino Chiwenga said on Friday that it was likely that more transmissible variants of COVID-19 were now circulating in Zimbabwe and that the government was investigating.
He said a tighter one-month lockdown, reintroduced on January 2 and including a dusk-to-dawn curfew and the closure of land borders, would be extended for another two weeks.
Among those who have died in recent days were two cabinet ministers, a retired general and other senior officials. The two ministers were treated in a private clinic.
A government spokesperson sparked an uproar on social media this week when he suggested in a tweet that the deaths of ruling party officials may have been the work of “medical assassins.”
He has since apologized and deleted his tweets after health workers pointed out that they had been risking their lives for months treating patients without proper protective equipment, ventilators and other life-saving supplies.
When the rich and powerful in Zimbabwe get sick, they often travel abroad to get the best health care money can buy. But with travel limited by the global health crisis, the elite discover the country’s healthcare system has been collapsing for years https://t.co/tYeutAcIxd pic.twitter.com/WaoSlnvHys
– Reuters (@Reuters) January 30, 2021
‘HIDE, STAY AT HOME’
The government says it is doing its best with limited resources in an economy in recession since 2019.
Agnes Mahomva, the coordinator of the national COVID-19 task force, told Reuters Zimbabwe was equipped to handle the second wave and the government was emphasizing prevention after tightening lockdown rules earlier this month -this.
“We expected this push because people had relaxed. Our hospitals are well prepared to treat patients, but we continue to say “hide and stay home”. It’s the best way to beat COVID-19, ”said Mahomva.
The country of 15 million people has 84 working ventilators in public hospitals and 1,049 beds reserved for COVID-19 patients in private and public institutions, according to data from the Ministry of Health.
In the Parirenyatwa group of public hospitals, the country’s largest COVID-19 center with 97 beds, there are two beds in intensive care units and the hospital is almost full, said Rashida Ferrand, epidemiologist and doctor. to the hospital.
Private hospitals, which are better equipped, have less than 15% of the national bed capacity and charge at least $ 2,000 to admit COVID-19 patients.
Some desperate Zimbabweans have taken to social media in search of hospital beds and ventilators for their sick relatives.
DESPAIR
The two cabinet ministers and the retired army general, who all died from COVID-19, were buried on Wednesday after being declared national heroes for their role in the liberation war of the 1970s.
Chiwenga told a crowd of around 300 at their joint funeral that the virus was ruthless.
“COVID-19 has taught us an important lesson, which is that we are all mortals. He does not distinguish between the powerful and the weak, the privileged and the have not, the have and have not, ”said Chiwenga, who wore a mask and face shield.
He is also Zimbabwe’s Minister of Health and has made several trips to China in the past 18 months for an unspecified illness.
“He is a ruthless heavyweight who leaves a trail of hopelessness and despair,” Chiwenga said, adding that plans to roll out the vaccines would be announced soon.
Health workers on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus say they are demoralized with low salaries and a lack of protective equipment.
Enoch Dongo, president of the Zimbabwe Nurses Association, said most nurses work shifts of up to 12 hours without gloves, gowns or safety shoes and with only one surgical mask.
“Psychologically, mentally and physically, nurses are traumatized as we speak right now, because they are watching patients die in their care (and)… some of them are preventable deaths,” Dongo said.
“It’s a wake-up call for everyone, for politicians, for the Zimbabwean people, for the business community, that we need to invest in our health care system because … for now, with the COVID-19, no one can travel outside the country. “
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