This archive report was first published on 10 September 2019.
For decades, Zimbabwe's public hospitals have been a reflection of the country's economic decay under Robert Mugabe's rule. The once-vaunted institutions are now under-equipped and crumbling, with doctors and patients facing dire conditions.
Latex gloves are used as makeshift urine bags, operating rooms lack light bulbs, and patients are often required to refuel their own ambulances, medics say. The situation is a stark contrast to the gleaming Gleneagles clinic in Singapore, where Mugabe sought treatment before his death at age 95.
"It is very symbolic that the former president who presided over the system for three decades can't trust the health system," said Edgar Munatsi, a doctor at Chitungwiza Hospital. "It says a lot about the current state of our health system."
Published on September 10, 2019 Since the early 1990s, the public health system has steadily deteriorated, with patients and loved ones resigned to the situation. "It's pathetic," says Saratiel Marandani, a 49-year-old street vendor who had to buy a dressing for his mother. "Only the consultations are free (...) if you need paracetamol, you need to buy it yourself." Doctors say they sometimes have to pay out of their own pocket for patients' medication, or even just their bus ticket home. At Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare, Lindiwe Banda lays prostrate on her bed, a diabetic who was given the green light to go home – but only after paying her bill. Medics have just begun their latest protest to demand a pay rise after salaries lost 15 times their value in a few months and consumer prices spiralled out of control. "We are incapacitated," says Peter Magombeyi, a doctor whose salary is the equivalent of 115 euros a month – a pittance that requires him to do odd jobs to get by. "The health system reflects the economy of the country," says Prosper Chonzi, the director of health services in Harare. The legacy of Mugabe's rule continues to haunt Zimbabwe's hospitals, with patients and doctors struggling to survive in a system that is broken and in dire need of reform.
