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Tanaka Mahanya Features Writer
The attainment of Independence in 1980 saw the Government committing to provide health services for citizens who had been sidelined under white colonial rule.
For effective economic development, the Government focused on health and education to provide social security to the previously marginalised black majority.
Government-private partnerships
To achieve its target, the Government partnered private stakeholders after Independence to bring together resources to create a vibrant economic base.
Being a member of the United Nations (UN), some of the stakeholders that the Government of Zimbabwe partnered with include World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), World Food Programme (WFP) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Inasmuch as the Government was undoubtedly the sole financier in social services, mission hospitals played a critical role in the provision of health facilities for the majority of citizens.
Mission health institutions under the Zimbabwe Association of Church-related Hospitals (ZACH) partnered the Government in the running of national programmes to expand facilities on both preventive and curative health issues.
From Andrew Fleming to Parirenyatwa
Andrew Fleming Hospital, now Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, was the largest health institution in colonial Rhodesia named after the first medical director appointed to the Rhodesian Health Service, and was meant to serve the white community.
The “blacks only”, Harare (Gomo) Central Hospital, now Sally Mugabe Central Hospital, was opened for blacks.
Equipment and drugs deemed as excess baggage at Andrew Fleming Hospital would be delivered to Gomo for blacks.
Following Zimbabwe’s Independence in 1980, the hospital was renamed in honour of Tichafa Samuel Parirenyatwa, who was the first black person from the country to qualify as a medical doctor.
He was also the first Vice President of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), and father to former Health and Child Care Minister David Parirenyatwa.
Together with its general medical and surgical sections, the group of hospitals encompasses Mbuya Nehanda Maternity Hospital; Sekuru Kaguvi, which specialises in eye treatment, and an annex for psychiatric patients and several specialist paediatric wards. It also houses the University of Zimbabwe Medical School.
Despite economic challenges, the institution has continued to provide quality and cost-effective specialist healthcare services to the public and modern training and research facilities for health personnel.
Most district and provincial hospitals in Zimbabwe were built in the post-independence era. For example, Chinhoyi, Chitungwiza and Guruve, Mt Darwin, Shamva, Murehwa, Wedza district hospitals, among others opened doors post 1980. In fact, the Government has built more than 65 hospitals since independence.
Immunisation
Zimbabwe has been at the forefront of promoting immunisation for children since it’s attainment of Independence in 1980.
Before Independence, vaccination programmes were limited to the urban privileged who were mostly whites, and children of school-going age were the main target, regardless of the fact that infants suffer from a lot of diseases too.
In 1982, Zimbabwe launched the Expanded Programme on Immunisation, whose aim was to make immunisation available and accessible to every child by 1990.
Almost 80 percent of children below the age of 12 months were successfully vaccinated by the end of 1990.
WHO estimates that this prevented more than 80 000 deaths of under-fives every year.
Zimbabwe achieved elimination status for maternal deaths in 2000 and is in the pre-elimination phase for measles, and achieved polio-free certification status.
The country has plans to maintain the elimination status for maternal and neonatal, tetanus and the polio-free certification status until they have been eradicated.
Village Health Worker Programme
The Village Health Worker Programme began in the 1980s as part of Zimbabwe’s transition towards primary healthcare.
Unlike in colonial Rhodesia where blacks were closed out of primary healthcare facilities, the programme ensured that most people access basic health facilities.
The programme focuses on disease prevention, and provides community care at primary level in rural and semi-urban areas.
It serves as a key link from the community to the formal health system.
Most families in rural areas are situated far from clinics, and accessing basic health facilities becomes a challenge.
Villagers are divided among themselves, particularly where economic stratification exists, to make sure that the neediest are the first to be served.
As a way of mitigating challenges associated with access to healthcare, in September last year, President Mnangagwa said the Government had earmarked funds for the construction of 6 600 clinics to ensure that no one travels more than 10km to reach a health service as some communities still have limited access to facilities.
Achievements
Zimbabwe broke new ground in its medical history by successfully performing the first major operation on Siamese twins born in April, with a team of 50 doctors having worked on the eight-hour delicate procedure at Harare Children’s Hospital.
Again, last year surgeons at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals conducted a world record operation after successfully removing a 12,3kg 11-year-old kidney cyst from a patient, a feat that speaks volumes of the country’s medical expertise and services.
The cyst became the largest to be removed in the world, with the previous record set in Japan where a similar one weighing 11,5kg was removed.
Funding constraints
Though Government gave its full support to improve free health access and care, it lacked financial and infrastructural capacity to do so due to a number of reasons, chief among them being an illegal embargo imposed on Zimbabwe by Western countries.
At a time when there was demand for health services due to HIV/AIDS prevalence in many mission and Government hospitals, authorities were burdened in their efforts to curb the condition, leading to the death of many in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Zimbabwe’s economic challenges are affecting the Government’s ability and commitment to fund public health delivery at the same time restricting ordinary citizens’ access to healthcare
Sanctions have been the major culprit hindering Government’s capacity in the provision of health services and facilities.
The health sector has also suffered from dilapidated infrastructure, brain drain, industrial actions and lack of equipment and drugs, which have affected access to quality healthcare.
As we celebrate 40 years of Independence this year, marked on April 18, there is greater need for us to commit ourselves to the development of our country with a view to making the health sector stand as the strongest of all times.
Online Reporter