The cost of a beating heart

Rumbidzayi Zinyuke-Health Buzz

WHEN I received the news of Colleta Nhare’s death recently, I was gutted.  I had just interviewed her less than a month back. She had a story to tell, but it seems she took it to the grave, never to be heard.

She was just 39 years old, leaving behind a lot of unanswered questions.

Not only about the life she lived, but about the many lives like hers caught in the same struggle.

Diagnosed with heart disease at the age of 15, Colleta had lived most of her life shuttling between her home and hospitals, carrying the weight of her condition and her hope for survival with equal strength.

At one point, she had to live in a hospital for two years while waiting for a chance to travel to Italy for surgery. Many of the patients she shared her ward with did not make it. Somehow, she did.

But that operation wasn’t the end of her fight. Colleta died before she could get the second surgery she so desperately needed.

One that doctors said could offer her a normal life. It would have cost about US$18 000 in India, a figure she tried to raise for years but could never afford.

Her final years were marked by loneliness, faith and a resilience few could ever match.

“When my parents died, I was left all alone. Whenever I suffer an attack, I carry my bag and go to the hospital alone,” she said, in what would be her last interview.

“Since I have no one to visit me, I put on my earphones and listen to music during visiting hours. I crave a family’s love, but I don’t have that. I only have God.

“If someone had told me 20 years ago that I would survive another 20 years fighting one disease, I would have asked God to take me earlier.”

Her story, now closed, opens a painful window into the lives of thousands of Zimbabweans with heart conditions who continue to suffer. Not because their illness is untreatable, but because treatment is simply out of reach.

Heart disease is among the leading causes of death in Zimbabwe, yet it remains underfunded.

World Health Organisation data from 2018 showed that coronary heart disease accounted for nearly 5 percent of all deaths in the country.

Every day, patients are diagnosed with heart conditions that require a lifetime of medication and, in many cases, surgical interventions. But without access to affordable treatment, many are forced into a cruel waiting game.

They wait for a donor, a subsidy or a miracle. During that last interview I had with Colletta, she was with other patients who equally faced the same challenges she did.

Zim Heart Trust had organised a golf tournament, with support from Cell Insurance and other private partners, with the hope of raising funds that would assist heart patients like Colletta in their journey.

Although she is gone, others like Ruva Penelope Mavezera, a 23-year-old mother from Chinhoyi, still have hope.

Diagnosed with patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) during pregnancy in 2022, she was told her condition could not be treated locally. The surgery she needs in India costs US$15 000.

“I cannot work because I get tired from even the smallest of tasks. I get attacks out of nowhere. My mother now takes care of me and my child, but it’s hard,” she said.

A simple INR test, which helps monitor blood thinning levels in patients with mechanical heart valves, can be out of reach for patients. The medications, such as warfarin, beta-blockers, and diuretics, are recurrent and lifelong.

Surgery is the elephant in the room

In Zimbabwe, the cost of heart surgery in private healthcare can exceed US$100 000. This is an astronomical figure for most families.

Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals has been offering open heart surgeries, but there have been a limited number of operations due to inadequate capacity and resources.

But these surgeries do change lives.

This was the case for Gladys Ngoshi, who lived with rheumatic heart disease from childhood, and finally got her surgery in 2023 when Parirenyatwa began offering open heart operations. But like others, she remains dependent on expensive monthly tests and medication.

This is where the private sector comes in.

While the Government works on improving the capacity for public health institutions to cover the backlog for surgeries, there is need for the private sector to come in and play their part.

ZimHeart co-founder Dr Isheunesu Makuzwa said the organisation is overwhelmed by the number of patients in desperate need.

“There is need to create awareness of this condition and also the issues that surround it, but most importantly, to raise resources because we are continuously inundated by requests for basic medication,” he said.

“We believe that heart conditions are nothing peculiar; they are treatable and people can have normal lives. But it is just that the cost of treatment is way beyond their reach.

“It is our wish that as the Government is identifying diseases that need to be prioritised in terms of support, they must now look at heart disease. If we set this up in all our health care facilities, we will also encourage the private sector to come in with resources,”

Dr Makuzwa’s own daughter has had three heart surgeries since she was a child. He says their journey, though difficult, was made possible by private insurance and early detection, luxuries many don’t have.

Without urgent intervention, the situation will worsen.

The WHO Global Action Plan on NCDs urges countries to reduce premature deaths from non-communicable diseases by 25 percent by 2025, this includes heart disease. But Zimbabwe cannot meet that target without deliberate investment in cardiovascular care.

Colleta Nhare’s death is not just the loss of one woman, it is the quiet, preventable loss of so many others like her. She wanted nothing more than to live a normal life.

She survived for decades with nothing but faith, grit, and the will to keep going when everyone around her said otherwise.

Her last words to me, now echo with chilling finality: “Sometimes you realise that surviving this long is a miracle. Even with no relative who cares for me, I believe that God kept me for a reason. My faith kept me going.”

She didn’t survive forever, but she survived long enough to tell her story, and through that story, call everyone to action.

The question now is whether all other heart patients can afford the cost of a beating heart.

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