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Zimbabwe
hospital stops surgery as drugs dry up: rights group
Agence France
Presse
February 24, 2008
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gw3n6MW86EgzM1oE38cw7lT5AE4Q
Harare —
Zimbabwe's biggest state hospital has stopped surgical operations
because of a breakdown of equipment and shortages of drugs, a rights
group said Sunday.
"There
is a critical shortage of items ranging from anaesthetic to surgical
equipment at Parirenyatwa hospital," Douglas Gwatidzo, chairman
of Zimbabwe Doctors
for Human Rights told AFP.
"Surgeons can carry
out operations but they are saying they cannot risk their profession
and increase the risk on the lives of the patient.
"They are not prepared
to be blamed for an operation which goes wrong because it was done
without the necessary equipment, and operating on a patient when
there are no painkillers to relieve their pain amounts to subjecting
that patient to torture."
The state-owned Herald
newspaper said Parirenyatwa Hospital was referring patients requiring
emergency operations to Harare central hospital which is battling
with its own shortages.
Those who can afford
it are referred to expensive private hospitals.
Deputy health minister
Edwin Muguti blamed the shortages on western-imposed targeted sanctions.
"Government is aware
of the serious anaesthetic drugs shortages that have hit our central
hospitals," Muguti was quoted by the Sunday Mail as saying.
"These are results
of western-imposed sanctions that we are always talking about. We
can't promise when the situation will return to normal but we want
to assure the nation that we are treating this as an urgent matter."
The deputy minister said
the last stocks of the widely used ketamine and propofol drugs were
donated and have since run out.
Zimbabwe is
in the throes of economic crisis with annual inflation
officially at over 100,000 percent. There is a chronic shortage
of basic goods and the majority of the population lives below the
poverty threshold.
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