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Taking stock of health rights in Zimbabwe on World Health Day
Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR)
April 07, 2006

The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) today commemorates World Health Day by registering its concerns for health rights in Zimbabwe. This year’s theme, "Working Together For Health" focuses on health workers and the essential contribution they make to strong, functioning health systems. We recognize that realization of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health remains a daily struggle for all health workers in Zimbabwe.

The Zimbabwean health delivery sector is presently in a state of crisis with hospitals and clinics countrywide barely functioning due to a lack of sufficient nurses and in very many cases no doctors. Operations at referral hospitals in Bulawayo and Harare have been severely compromised and district and mission hospitals are threatened with closure, with some district hospitals operating without medical officers. This is the result of a continued massive exodus of qualified health workers. The failure to retain health workers results from many factors, amongst them poor remuneration and lack of basic medical equipment necessary for health workers to satisfactorily carry out their work.

ZADHR also notes with concern the state of the country’s main referral hospital, Harare Central Hospital. The Hospital is currently operating with inadequate medical officers, indefinite closure of certain wards including the ICU, break down of equipment such as lavatories and elevators, and insufficient teaching staff for undergraduate and graduate students. The right to health cannot be realized without well trained health workers.

We maintain that the economic challenges prevailing in Zimbabwe do not justify Government’s failure to promote and protect the right to health. Striving to achieve, at the very least, minimum standards for health, is the basis of ending deprivation and inequality in access to health. Inadequate investment in the public health service continues to cause severe shortages of staff, supplies and equipment, resulting in unnecessary deaths and patient suffering.

Solutions do exist to Zimbabwe’s health crisis. Government take the lead in halting further deterioration of the Zimbabwean health sector. We call for the following actions to be taken:

• The Ministry of Finance must ensure that health is made a priority in allocation of resources by Government;
• A national public health strategy and plan of action must be developed which address the current crisis and lead to protection and promotion of health rights;
• Effective measures must be developed to prevent, treat and control epidemic and endemic diseases;
• With respect to Harare Central Hospital - ostensible commitment by the Minister of Health and Child Welfare to addressing the crisis prevailing at the Hospital must translate into effective action;
• Donors must commit to reviving the public health sector, including the dedication of resources to improving salaries and working conditions of health workers.

Visit the ZADHR fact sheet

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