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Collapsed health system violating health rights
Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR)
November 19, 2008

View images of the doctors' protest

Health system collapse

Zimbabwe's public health system is in a state of collapse and in need of urgent action to rescue it. It has been paralysed by drug shortages, insufficient medical supplies, dilapidated infrastructure, equipment breakdowns and brain drain. The main referral hospitals in the country - Harare Central Hospital and Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare and Mpilo Hospital and United Bulawayo Hospitals in Bulawayo have been virtually closed. Most district hospitals and municipal clinics are barely functioning or closed. Sick people in need of medical attention are being turned away from Zimbabwe's hospitals and clinics.

The withdrawal of maternity services at Harare and Parirenyatwa Hospitals means that healthy women requiring elective and emergency caesarean sections, and unable to afford private health care, will needlessly die in child birth. In the absence of specialist care tens of women could be victims of maternal mortality each weak due to the absence of a specialist response to complications.

The failure of the public health system is paralleled by private healthcare whose cost, now charged in US dollars, has skyrocketed beyond the reach of the majority of Zimbabweans.

Health workers protest

On 18 November 2008 health workers from Harare Central and Parirenyatwa Hospitals protested against the state of the public health system. These health workers have continued to attempt to deliver health services in extremely difficult circumstances and planned to march to the offices of the Minister of Health and Child Welfare at Kaguvi Building to present a petition calling for urgent action to be taken to restore accessible and affordable health care to Zimbabwe's population.

Heavily armed riot police prevented the group from proceeding further than Leopold Takawira Street outside of Parirenyatwa Hospital where they had gathered at 8am. The group then held their protest within the grounds of Parirenyatwa Hospital for 4 hours before riot police entered the hospital grounds at 11:45am and forcibly dispersed them, assaulting several health workers in the process.

Closure of the University of Zimbabwe Medical School

The Medical School of the University of Zimbabwe was closed indefinitely on 17 November 2008. It became impossible to continue to teach medical students in non-functioning health institutions. It will not be possible to reopen the medical school or to provide quality training of health professionals for Zimbabwe's health system until the issues that have lead to its collapse are addressed.

Cholera outbreak

The cholera outbreak in the country remains the cause of hundreds of preventable deaths with the disease having spread within Harare's suburbs, Mashonaland Central, East and West and Matabeleland South. Thirty-six deaths were confirmed over just two days in Beitbridge this past weekend.

Failure to contain and manage the outbreak is the result of inadequate supply of safe drinking water and broken down sanitation systems that often leave residents surrounded by flowing raw sewage despite ad hoc financial intervention by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and deployment of the Civil Protection Unit to attend to these issues.

Call to action

ZADHR calls for the following urgent action to be taken:

1. The government should declare the cholera outbreak a national disaster and solicit international support to bring it under control and restore supply of safe water and sanitation systems to Zimbabwe's population.
2. Measures should be taken to provide adequate medical supplies, drugs and equipment to Zimbabwe's hospitals and clinics. While long term sustainable measures are ultimately required, there is a need for urgent interim assistance to restore functionality to Zimbabwe's health system.
3. The Government must guarantee quality for health professionals and to ensure that conditions in which these skills can be retained are put in place (including adequate remuneration and safe working conditions).

Visit the ZADHR fact sheet

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