Chronicle Editor
Mthabisi Tshuma, Showbiz Correspondent
Due to the depressed arts industry, some artistes have been dying as paupers while others fail to keep up with medical bills when they fall ill. This was the case for, among others, veteran actor Gringo who failed to raise money for medication when he fell ill last year, leading him to appeal to the public for help.
Now with the ongoing lockdown that has further crippled artistes as they cannot conduct their business as usual, many have been left between a rock and a hard place. Concerned about this situation, award-winning comedian MaForty (real name Herbert Dumisani Ndlovu) has decided to find a way to improve it so that artistes lead better lives.
MaForty reached out to a medical service provider and pleaded with them to offer registered artistes a discount for medical services. The medical service provider agreed to help and the facility has been set up to help artistes access medical services at a 50 percent discount.
“What happened to Gringo affected me and it got me to try and find a solution so that fellow artistes do not encounter the same. I then decided to approach 9th Avenue Surgery directors and proposed that they offer artistes medical services at discounted prices.
“They bought the idea as they had also been trying to come up with a corporate social responsibility programme.
Many thanks to them for coming on board,” MaForty said. “It took about two months to fully set up the agreement because we had to come up with terms and conditions for registration for this facility.”
Urging artistes to register under the facility, MaForty said it is for artistes in the Matabeleland region with talks underway with a number of pharmacies, laboratories and other specialists to come on board.
“The artiste should be a Zimbabwean citizen, must be a practising artiste (musical, acting, fine arts, spoken word and DJ among other genres) and must be an arts administrator and must be registered or works for an organisation registered or affiliated with National Arts Council of Zimbabwe,” explained MaForty. – @mthabisi_mthire
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