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Mukudzei Chingwere-Herald Reporter
Having been diagnosed with a life-threatening heart ailment back in 2019, which needed corrective surgery, the then 25-year-old Miss Blessing Bonda could only watch as her world appeared to be crumbling around her.
Zimbabwe, at the time of her diagnosis, had closed its only heart surgery unit a year earlier as authorities sought to revamp the operation and modernise it to standards consistent with leading medical jurisdictions in the world.
Her only salvation was thus in looking beyond the country’s borders for corrective surgery.
It was an option that was well beyond the reach of her pocket as it demanded close to US$30 000 for patients without medical insurance, an astronomical figure for a young lady barely starting to find her feet whose situation was compounded by the sad fact that both her parents were deceased.
Miss Bonda had no option but to endure a heartbreaking wait for the inevitable.
Death!
As she endured, the Second Republic under President Mnangagwa’s watch, was championing a drive towards universal health coverage of quality consistent with an empowered upper-middle income economy with which the President hopes to bring world class health service to the populace.
It’s a journey Zimbabwe has well set off on and has to date gotten international validation with world bodies such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and others all heaping praise on the trajectory that Zimbabwe has taken and even imploring some to copy the Zimbabwean example.
Fast forward to June 2023, Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care Dr Constantino Chiwenga went into Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals on official business.
The occasion was the official opening or relaunch of Zimbabwe’s one and only open surgery facility.
Hope had been restored for Miss Bonda.
However, a new challenge arose, the surgery was to be undertaken by an exclusive team of Zimbabwean medical personnel whose last such experience was in 2019 when Parirenyatwa closed its open heart surgery facility.
Miss Bonda was afraid the team wanted to experiment and or polish up their act with her.
“I was afraid that I was going to be operated on, worse still, chest operation but when I woke up I was not even in pain at all and up to now I do not have any pain,” Miss Bonda said in an interview after undergoing a successful operation from which she is recovering well.
“I was afraid that I was going to be the first patient to be operated on, I thought they were practicing these surgeries on me and I was afraid that I could die. I just want to thank all who assisted in this successful operation, I never anticipated that I would be successfully operated.
“After I am discharged, I want to go to work again, any job that will enable me to fend for myself. I just want to find a comfortable place to live because at the moment we are renting.”
Specialist cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon, Dr Simukayi Machawira, leader of the 30-member medical team that undertook the open-heart surgery, confirmed the success of the delicate surgery on Miss Bonda and said it was good times for other patients with the same ailment.
“It was a cause for anxiety for both the patient and us as the operating team on the background that it had been about five years since we had done a case locally and we are happy that everything worked out well and here she is, able to testify that the operation went on well,” he said.
“Subsequently, we operated on another patient yesterday (Thursday) who is also doing very well. She is in ICU and we expect that probably by Monday or Tuesday she will be in the ward with Blessing. We started by operating one patient per week but we will move to two per week until we start conducting the operations daily.
“What makes us happier is that everyone involved in the operation was Zimbabwean and this week we have also operated on another patient successfully. We expect that she cannot do most activities after one to two months.”
“Roughly, the first operation took about six hours and it was mainly because we had to gel since we were just starting as a team. The one we did yesterday (Thursday) took about three hours, so you can see that we are progressively getting better.”
Lead anaesthetist Dr Shield Kajese said the team did not encounter challenges during the surgery and is also confident that the team can only get better with each surgery under their belt.
“We didn’t have any challenges in putting her to sleep, keeping her asleep and waking her up after the operation. We did not meet any unexpected challenges, it went on very well,” said Kajese.
Speaking at the relaunch of the surgery in Harare last week, VP Chiwenga said Government will continue pulling all stops to better the country’s health services up to a point where all medical specialties are offered locally.
This, as per Government’s strategy, should be done at very affordable if not for free to the citizens as per the dictates of an upper-middle income economy envisioned by President Mnangagwa.
Miss Bonda can now testify that President Mnangagwa has delivered on his healthcare promise to the populace.
She is no longer afraid of dying but is looking forward to life with renewed hope and energized to make it big in life and partake in the development of her country as per the “Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo/ ilizwe lakhiwa ngabanikazi balo” approach by President Mnangagwa.
Online Reporter