Category: News

HARARE - The Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) has condemned the obstruction of injured citizens from emergency medical services in the wake of the violence that rocked the country during the stay-away.
CWG executive director Itai Rusike expressed concern over the consequences of the current situation of violence against citizens’ rights to health and health care.
Violent protests erupted across the country earlier this week following President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s unpopular decision to hike fuel prices.
Soldiers reportedly prevented all movement by civilians, disabling those severely hurt from accessing medical facilities.
Rusike has slammed this behaviour and called upon government to ensure that citizens’ right to medical treatment are not infringed upon.
“Urgent action should be taken to prevent and deal with such acts of violence and that health services should be safe zones. The State is responsible for ensuring the right to life and access to health services, and thus the protection of health workers and clients seeking health care.
“To this end the CWGH calls for active measures to take decisive action against any person obstructing a citizen access to emergency medical services or interfering in the delivery of that emergency service,” he said.
CWGH has also urged government to take decisive action against perpetrators of violence and assault on citizens and to ensure that any victim of injury, assault or other acts of violence are afforded normal and reasonable access to emergency medical services.
“Acts of violence perpetrated against ordinary citizens, (through beatings and gunshot). Abduction and threat of physical assault are too many to list. Protection of health facilities and creation of safe zones demands some form of preventive policing,” Rusike said.
The executive director added that government should protect health facilities against invasion, intimidation of any sort or closure and ensure that health facilities constitute safe zones where intimidation cannot take place.
This comes after Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights a total (ZADHR) released a report sharing critical information on the human rights crisis in the country following the outbreak of the violent protests.
According to the report, 172 people injured were attended to. Sixty-eight of the cases were from gunshot wounds whilst the remainder were from assaults with sharp objects, booted feet, batons, sjamboks and tarmac abrasions.
The doctors’ association described the state’s response as disproportionate, pointing out how some patients were brutally dragged out of the hospital against doctors’ orders.
“ZADHR also witnessed with shock and condemnation the dragging of patients with life-threatening conditions to court. There are cases of patients who had chest trauma (haemopneumothorax) and fractured limbs (femur) that were forcibly taken from hospital to attend court despite the advice of doctors.
“ZADHR has on record that 17 individuals have to date undergone emergency surgery as they had life-threatening conditions. More cases continue to be reported to the association as many people

Nokuthaba Nkomo

JUNIOR doctors at public hospitals yesterday ended their 40-day long strike after some consultant doctors allegedly threatened to cause them to fail their internship.

By Everson Mushava/Vanessa Gonye

The Zimbabwe Hospitals Doctors’ Association, in a statement, confirmed the decision to “begrudgingly” end the job action before striking a salary deal with government.

“ZHDA is delighted to inform the membership, members of the Press and the public that the industrial action by doctors has come to an end,” ZHDA secretary-general Mthabisi Bhebhe said.
“Sadly, with no salary review, and frozen December salaries, in this rough and ravaging economic environment, it remains a dilemma how our members will report to work daily.

“Indeed, poor remuneration and the current fuel shortages remain a threat that may spontaneously hinder our members from reporting to work and discharging quality health services to patients. That being said, our members have begrudgingly resumed work with effect from today, as dialogue continues.”
Doctors have been on strike since December 1 and efforts by government to get them to return to work hit a brick wall several times.
Sources said the doctors finally made the decision to return to work after they were threatened by consultant doctors that they risked going it alone. The striking doctors were reportedly ordered to call off their strike on Wednesday as government attended to their grievances.

“If they (government) give you a pay rise today, the whole country will demand that and the government will not be able to cope,” a senior doctor involved in the negotiations said.  “The cost of living (adjustment) is coming in March. It is coming, they have promised. Consider what is there on the table and take. If you continue, if the consultant says fire them, you will come back to zero.

“Remember, you are not yet registered with the Medical Council. If you get fired, no matter what you want to do, you will never go anywhere. You would have wasted six years of training. I am pleading with you, suffer for a while.”

Community Working Group on Health executive director Itai Rusike said the dispute between the hospital doctors and government was the culmination of a build-up over the years of an inadequate balance between spending on salaries and on the resources and supplies needed for the effective professional practice of personnel.  “For the past five years or so, the doctors have been promised non-cash incentives whenever they strike, but when they resume work, those promises were not fulfilled. Instead, they got threats,” he said.

“CWGH feels that the issue of non-cash incentives such as duty-free vehicles, housing stands and opportunity for career growth has to be prioritised.”

GOVERNMENT and local authorities have been urged to ensure provision of basic water and sanitation infrastructure in order to effectively deal with the cholera and typhoid outbreaks, the former which has claimed the lives of 30 people countrywide and affected over 5 000.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
The Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) yesterday reproached government and local authorities over continuously playing the blame game, saying they must concentrate on restoring infrastructure and social services to save lives.
“The cholera outbreak highlights the failure of government to maintain basic public health standards,” Itai Rusike, the CWGH executive director said.
Rusike said the main problem was that in most urban residents go for months without tap water, forcing them to dig shallow and unprotected wells and boreholes that can be contaminated by raw sewage flowing from burst pipes.
“Cities, once the epitome of good hygiene, have now been turned into big communal villages. Practically and in the short-term, people need clean water – they need adequate aqua tablets, they need boreholes; they need water bowsers as a matter of urgency,” he said.
Rusike said local authorities were in charge of all water delivery, sewerage and refuse collection and were the recipients of all rates paid by residents that expected proper service delivery, yet there were reports that they were diverting money paid by residents to buy luxury cars and giving each other loans.
He said Zimbabwe needs consistent supply of clean water in urban areas if the country is to end the burden of waterborne diseases.
Most of Zimbabwe’s water and sewer pipes are archaic as they were constructed during the colonial era and have not been refurbished for the past 38 years.
ZimRights in a statement also said cholera and typhoid were hygiene-related ailments fuelled by poor water reticulation systems in Harare, apart from lapses in personal hygiene.

HEALTH stakeholders are deeply agitated by the lukewarm approach being shown by both the government and local authorities in addressing the typhoid outbreak that has so far officially claimed nine lives in Gweru and Masvingo.
BY PHYLLIS MBANJE

The outbreak has, however, spread to other parts of the country, with new cases being reported in Kadoma.
“There is need for a serious public campaign for local authorities to deliver safe water. Our water sources are contaminated. What are we doing about it?” Fungisayi Dube from the Citizens Health Watch (CHW) asked.
She said the new local authorities had a mandate to step up and eradicate typhoid and to be open about the situation with the water system so that necessary measures can be taken.
“The water should be tested. We need a proper report on the quality of water,” Dube said.
Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) director Itai Rusike (pictured) said it was disturbing that the outbreak of water-borne diseases such as typhoid and cholera was no longer a new phenomenon in Zimbabwe.
“It is even more disturbing when the authorities take over a month to officially acknowledge the problem, and let alone try to address it,” Rusike said.
Masvingo has been facing serious water challenges, a situation which is conducive for the outbreak of waterborne diseases like typhoid.
Some parts of Kadoma have gone for more than 20 years without running water and in June, the local authority said they needed about $4 million to address the challenge.
“This care-free approach to human life should not and cannot be tolerated and it is a clear indication of the levels of disdain the government has on the ordinary poor Zimbabweans. The Community Working Group on Health is deeply depressed by the lackadaisical approach being shown by both,” Rusike said.
He said the Health ministry, despite being the custodian of the Public Health Act, continued to act as if the situation was normal even in the wake of nine deaths.
“As CWGH, we urge the Health ministry, Gweru City Council and other stakeholders to quickly find common ground and tackle this health crisis,” he said.
The stakeholders have, however, welcomed the signing into law of the revised Public Health Act by President Emmerson Mnangagwa to replace the old and outdated 1924 Public Health Act.
“Local authorities and companies in the country were taking advantage of the gaps and weaknesses of the colonial enacted Act to continue polluting water bodies because it is cheaper to pollute and pay than dispose raw sewer and industrial waste appropriately,” Rusike said.

Paidamoyo Chipunza Senior Health Reporter
In recent months, Zimbabwe has experienced a shortage of one of the most critical drugs for the management of tuberculosis (TB) in its first two months of diagnosis. This tablet, a combination of rifampicin, isoniazid, pyrazinamide and ethambutol tablets, also known as FDC-RHZE is imported, costs of which are wholly supported by a development partner.
Oxytocin is another tablet whose availability is also supported by development partners working with Government in reducing pregnancy related deaths.
It is used to control bleeding after birth, among other uses. Of late, this drug has also been in short supply.
These two medicines are typical examples of supply of critical drugs in the public health sector, where sole responsibility to provide some essential services has been assumed by donors, posing not only repercussions on patients’ road to recovery, but also a serious security threat to the country.
“My sister was diagnosed of TB a month ago at Mufakose Clinic in Harare. I’ve been going with her to collect her drugs weekly until recently when we were told that the drugs were out of stock.
“We went to Kambuzuma, Glen View and Budiriro clinics and the story was the same. We also went as far as Domboshava, but still didn’t get anything,” said Pretty Mandaza from Mufakose who is taking care of her sister.
She said last Saturday they went back to Makumbe Hospital, where they were only given a week’s supply.
“If one skips treatment for three consecutive days, they have to restart the whole two months course for it to be effective. My sister skipped her medication for more than three days now, meaning she is supposed to restart the treatment again.
“We have however, resolved not to give her this one week’s supply until we get enough medication because if her course is further interrupted, she will need to restart again,” further explained Ms Mandaza.
She said her sister’s condition had also deteriorated in the past weeks and they were now afraid that the TB bacteria could easily be passed on to other family members since she is no longer on treatment.
Ms Mandaza said they also feared that her sister would develop the drug resistant strain of TB which is difficult, expensive and takes longer to treat.
Without medical intervention TB is highly contagious and interrupted uptake of medication increase one’s chances of developing resistance to medication.
Deputy director of the Aids and Tuberculosis Unit in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Charles Sandi said the country needed at least $1,5 million for medicines to respond to drug sensitive TB and an additional $1 million for drug resistant TB.
Sadly, these medicines are currently funded by donors.
“We continue advocating for allocation of resources towards TB programming from our local resources so that donors come in only to complement our efforts not the other way round,” said Dr Sandi.
He said the challenge with relying on donors was that they procure from pharmaceuticals who meet certain standards, which are guaranteed by World Health Organisation accreditation.
“While we have no problems with the insistence on good quality medicines, the implication of this practice is that when the accredited pharmaceuticals have issues with their suppliers,which might impact on production processes, it also affects the whole supply chain resulting in shortages of the medicines such as those that we were experiencing in the past weeks,” said Dr Sandi.
In response to the current shortages, Government has availed US$500 000 from the Health Levy as a mitigatory measure to procure the much needed TB drugs.
Acting Natpharm managing director Mr Newman Madzikwa also confirmed that oxytocin, which was reported to be in short supply countrywide, was also funded by development partners.
Although Mr Madzikwa said the national drug stocks were improving following the introduction of the Health Levy, he said of late foreign currency shortages remain an impediment to procurements.
Mr Madzikwa said Natpharm had not been getting any allocations in the last two months.
“Since the beginning of the year, we have received about $5,5 million and the last allocation was sometime between May and June.
Mr Madzikwa further explained delays experienced in availing medicines after a tender has been awarded saying pharmaceuticals only produce an order once it has been paid for.
He said in that respect, medicines that are beginning to trickle in the country now were actually procured around June.
He said in light of these challenges, Natpharm was now working on utilising the letter of credit facility from the bank to guarantee payment to suppliers, but the facility is also issued based on availability of foreign currency.
However, Community Working Group on Health executive director Mr Itai Rusike said Government should invest domestic resources into local pharmaceuticals.
“With the coming in of the Health Levy, it is also high time Government begins investing in local pharmaceutical companies not only to ensure availability of drugs at reasonable costs but also to boost their potential.
“While donors give us money, they also expect us to buy from their industries, a situation that further contributes to underdevelopment of not only our country, but Africa as a whole,” said Mr Rusike.
He said currently most WHO accredited pharmaceuticals are from India, China, USA and Europe, yet great need of these pharmaceutical products was in Africa.
Mr Rusike further said reliance on funding partners was also a security threat to the country.
“Imagine if these donors are to pull out completely maybe because of differences in political ideologies where would that leave us as a country. Will the country not be held at ransom using these donations,” said Mr Rusike.
HIV activist Ms Martha Tholanah said by failing to prioritise such critical medications in national budgets, Government was doing a de-service to its citizens.
“Our Government has sold citizens out by placing their health and lives in the hands of donors. Why is there no allocation specifically for essential medicines in the national budget? Why is the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe not fulfilling its promise by releasing the amount of foreign currency that is needed,” she said.
Pan African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) director, Mr Tapiwanashe Kujinga also expressed concern over continued shortages of critical medicines outlying its implications on efforts to curb drug resistance illnesses.
Mr Kujinga said some of these drug resistant strains, like TB had high mortality rates, hence should be avoided from the beginning.
He said while Zimbabwe has made great strides in coming up with alternative sources of domestic financing through the Health Levy and the National Aids Trust Fund, more needed to be done on transparency and accountability to ensure maximum and effective use of the domestic resources.
He said Government should not only put in place sustainable mechanisms of funding, but also put in place clear structures and budgets on utilisation of those funds.
“As it stand, we do not know what else the Health Levy is funding. “We have been told its now funding costs of blood, dialysis and also drugs but we do not know the actual budgets, its administrative structure or the priority list,” said Mr Kujinga.
Domestic funding has been topical at most international forums, with the donor community advocating for increased domestic funding towards health.
The donors argue that, countries should take charge and responsibility of their challenges with funding partners complementing these efforts.