“The Chinese Government has pledged to refurbish and equip Wilkins Infectious Diseases Hospital to improve its capacity to handle suspected and confirmed cases. To this end, China is set to dispatch a team of experts to visit Wilkins Hospital soon to assess the facility's needs as part of the Eastern Asian county's initiative to assist African countries to deal with the coronavirus. Where local facilities fall short as in the case of test confirmation laboratories, the country leverages on its cordial relations with South Africa to ensure that nothing is left to chance,” advised Nobleman Runyanga in Bulawayo 24.
Zimbabweans have very good reasons to be alarmed at this. Why is it that the country does not have even one fully kitted facility to test and treat coronavirus victims nearly four months since the outbreak of the virus?
“Other people have even criticised these arrangements as though they do not know the enormity of the economic challenges which the country has had to contend with since 2001 when illegal sanctions were imposed on the country,” continued Runyanga.
I pray to God that there is no coronavirus outbreak in Zimbabwe because if there should be it is articles like this that make the people’s blood boil with anger!
There is no deny that the outbreak will cause untold human suffering and deaths in the country and all because the country’s economy has all but collapsed and so too has its health care service. The economic meltdown was caused by misrule and not sanctions!
40 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and rank lawlessness that has earned the country the pariah state label have left the country in economic ruins. The country has failed to maintain the hospitals and other infrastructure it inherited from the white colonial regime in 1980, much less improve on them.
The Zanu PF ruling elite have creamed off the wealth generated by the nation to bankroll their prodigal and extravagant lifestyles. Billions of dollars were poured into building palatial mansions such as Mugabe’s Blue Roof, the epitome of the regime’s selfish greed, whilst even the referral hospitals like Parerenyatwa and Mpilo Hospital were starved of funds so much so they often run out something as basic as painkillers and even clean running water!
Two weeks ago, ZACC, government’s own appointed anti-corruption Tzar, reported that it had uncovered US$ 7 billion in cash and assets salted out of the country by corrupt individuals including government leaders. There are billions more in cash and assets inside the country whose owners have no tax returns to prove they earned the loot legally.
ZACC will never recover even a fraction of the looted billions because the Godfathers of corruption are President Mnangagwa and his fellow Zanu PF cronies themselves. He promise “zero tolerance on corruption” when he took over from Mugabe in November 2017 but has since failed to stamp it out. He has admitted that corruption is “deep rooted”.
To uproot corruption, one must first uproot the Zanu PF dictatorship itself. And that is the one thing Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies will never do and risk losing power. They are addicted to power and the loot it has guaranteed.
Of course, it is an insult to be told the country’s economic meltdown is caused by sanctions when one can see all the evidence of ruling elite’s insatiable greed and the wholesale looting.
“Afirwa haatariswe kumeso!” (One must never look the aggrieved in the eye, especial those who played a part in the death!) So goes the Shona adage.
For Zanu PF to blame sanctions for any coronavirus deaths will be tantamount to spitting the aggrieved in the face. The nation has been cowed by brute force into submission but that does not mean we are stupid not to see what is going on!
According to Nobleman Runyanga in Bulawayo 24, Wilkins Hospital is not kitted to test much less to handle coronavirus cases. Zimbabwe is sending samples to SA for testing and is waiting for Chinese experts to kit out Wilkins Hospital. Runyanga blames the country's failure to act on "illegal sanctions".
ReplyDeleteThe money wasted in building Mugabe's Blue Roof palatial mansion alone would have been enough to turn Wilkins Hospital into a fully kitted and staffed 1 000 bed state of the art coronavirus hospital! So sanctions stopped the building of the hospital but not the mansion!
“I have to say that my end of mission report back to my Government will definitely emphasise the very promising future for Zimbabwe after the reform process is completed and I am very aware that some investors from the private sector are waiting,” said Egypt’s outgoing ambassador to Zimbabwe, Fahmy.
ReplyDelete“Now you have the new investment authority. I was informed by His Excellency (Emmerson Mnangagwa) that we will have some people from finance where they can meet directly with investors coming in different specialised sectors, so all my best wishes for your beautiful country.”
Egypt is not exactly a healthy and functioning democratic country still what the ambassador is saying is true. When other despotic regimes are now trying to put some distance between you and them, you know you are going down and they just don’t want you to take them down with them.
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF dictatorship are going under. The country’s economy is in total meltdown: education and health services have all but collapsed: the IMF, WB and other lenders and investors have packed their bags and left; donors like USA-AID, UK-AID, etc. have too packed their bags and left; etc. Zanu PF’s days in power are numbered!
The nurses were protesting against hospital Chief Executive Officer Mr Mabandi who is reportedly making the nurses work 4 days of 12-hour shifts.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the nurses are waiting for the outcome of negotiations between the government and the Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZINA). The nurses want to work for two days.
Some nurses were saying that they are forced to come to work but there is no medication for patients. An unnamed nurse said there is only one thermometer in the whole hospital.
A country whole referral hospital is poorly staffed and yet pays those few enough for them to work 2 days a week. Things are so bad, the hospital in down to one thermometer. We are certainly ill equipped to deal with something as serious as coronavirus.
This is a disaster that has been waiting to happen and now it is here!
Secretary for Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights Norman Matara has said Zimbabwe’s healthcare system is weak and will not be able to deal with a COVID-19 outbreak.
ReplyDelete“We have a very weakened healthcare system; we lack basic equipment and we (will be) taking samples to South Africa.
We don’t have enough resources at the quarantining centre.
We don’t have (equipment for computerised tomography (CT) scan, recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for diagnostic.
We only have two in the public health sector, at Chitungwiza and Parirenyatwa. We don’t even have an adequate ventilator for a continuous supply of oxygen.
We need to step up our game in terms of surveillance.
South Africa, which shares a porous border with Zimbabwe, has so far recorded two confirmed cases of coronavirus.
Meanwhile, there have been no deaths on the African continent from the virus, with confirmed cases having also been recorded in Senegal, Algeria and Nigeria.
Coronavirus has everyone scarred stiff but what makes our situation even worse is the knowledge that those tasked with the power and authority to make sure everything possible is done to protect the public are simply not up to the task. They have no clue what they are doing and so the nation will just be a sitting duck!
We are stuck with the corrupt, incompetent and murderous buffoons because they have carte blanche power to rig elections and falsify the people’s mandate to rule! What a nightmare.
Kirsty Coventry has let power get to her head and now she is as big headed and stupid as the rest of her Zanu PF cabinet colleagues. It is not only the nation's sporting facilities that are in need of repair after decades of neglect. Schools, hospitals, road, railway lines, power stations, you name it are all in very advance stages of rot and decay.
ReplyDeleteThe country is broke and hence the reason why it is not repairing anything. If we have the money, then surely our priority will be to get the economy back on track, restore basic services like clean running water, health care and education.
Repairing sport facilities will only be considered at a much latter date! Why she keeps harping about repairing stadia only goes to show she now blind to the realities on the ground!
THE 26-year-old Thailand man who escaped from Wilkins Hospital Monday before he could undergo coronavirus tests is reported to have pitched up at the hospital Tuesday morning.
ReplyDeleteHarare City Health Director, Prosper Chonzi confirmed the suspected coronavirus patient was now undergoing new tests and results were expected before the end day Tuesday.
If there is no coronavirus outbreak in Zimbabwe, it will be pure luck and not because of what this Zanu PF government has done. If this individual had coronavirus, how many other people would he have infected in the last two days he was lost to the authorities?
Clearly there many questions to be answered and lessons to be learned here but we are talking of a regime that is so laid back and cavalier about everything of substance no questions will ever be asked and no lessons learned.
Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because of decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption - a man made problem. It would be a pleasant surprise if for once in these last 40 years this Zanu PF was found competent, diligent and focused in its handling of the coronavirus threat. If the regime is its usual corrupt and incompetent self, then the country could well be heading for a nightmare, worse than any we have faced so far!
ReplyDeleteBut even if the nation is saved from the ravages of the coronavirus still this must be counted as a near miss and one never again to be repeated. And the only sure way the nation can be absolutely certain it does not happen ever again is by implementing the reforms and thus end the curse of bad governance.
It is Zimbabweans' failure to end the Zanu PF dictatorship regardless of the many golden opportunities to do so these last 40 years that make my blood boil more than Zanu PF and its apologists blubbering this nonsense of the sanctions. If the nation had acted and got rid of the thugs the regime would be long lost to history by now!