Harare — AT least 30 African-American specialist doctors are expected in the country before the end of the year on a fact finding mission, which will pave way for the secondment of more practitioners to alleviate the critical shortage in public health institutions.

A visiting African-American delegation which yesterday met the Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa, and some of his senior officials pledged to fund-raise for the health sector and the National Aids Council and to source for the much needed essential drugs and other medical consumables.

Head of delegation, Mr A Akbar Muhammad, the international representative of the Nation of Islam Africa Mission, also presented a sample of the more than $5 million worth of drugs and syringes to Dr Parirenyatwa.

Dr Earlene Green, a representative of an organisation known as Helping Americans Obtain Medication founded by Jewell Williams, the state representative of Pennsylvania, also presented a proposal to implement the same programme in Zimbabwe.

The programme links patients with drug manufacturers.

In an interview after the meeting with the minister, Mr Muhammad said the visit had been an eye opener for him and his delegation, which consisted of mainly journalists, medical doctors, a nurse and farmers, on the problems besieging the health sector.

He said as soon as the team returned to the US, it would start mobilising resources to assist the health sector, which he said, was in a "crisis".

Recruitment of doctors would be a priority as the ongoing brain drain was causing a lot of suffering to ordinary Zimbabweans.

Mr Muhammad said the team would negotiate with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to have the doctors come and work in government hospitals as early as December.

"I am targeting 30 doctors and this is going to be a Christmas gift for Zimbabweans. The doctors will be diagnosing patients and making recommendations.

"They will also bring with them medicines. More will follow after this and probably stay for longer periods," he said.

There are over 30 000 black doctors in the US the majority of whom are out of practice because of the discriminatory system in that country.

Very few white Americans can stand being attended to by a black doctor while the managed health care system had made the situation even worse.

Under the system, patients are referred to particular practitioners by their medical insurance and the majority of those benefiting were white doctors.

Most of the African-American doctors could also not afford the exorbitant insurance levied on doctors by the American government.

There were also many retired African-American doctors who would be willing to spend sometime in Zimbabwe.

Mr Muhammad took a swipe at European and American companies for taking advantage of the current economic situation in the country by recruiting local health professionals.

"This is not fair. There seems to be concerted effort by these companies to pull professionals away from Zimbabwe. If the companies were sincere they would stop advertising these jobs leaving people here to suffer. This is not normal, but a crisis," he said.

He said he hoped the group of journalists in his delegation would reach out to the African-American community and highlight to them the real situation on the ground.

"Some African-Americans do not know what is happening here because the Western media has demonised President Mugabe. This issue is about people and goes beyond politics," Mr Muhammad said in reference to the ongoing land redistribution.

The group also later toured Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals and Harare Central Hospitals where they got a feel of the situation on the ground.

They were briefed on the problems being faced by the institutions and also visited various departments.