PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa's spokesperson George Charamba, has acknowledged the dire state of Zimbabwe's public hospitals, highlighting infrastructure decay, policy gaps and systematic overload.
Charamba was speaking following Mnangagwa's visit to Zimbabwe's main referral hospitals, Parirenyatwa and Sally Mugabe, on Monday. The visits follow public outcry over the dysfunctional state of public hospitals.
Mnangagwa's government has long neglected general hospitals, which now face crumbling infrastructure, medicine shortages, costly patient care and poor wages that have led to low staff morale and a massive brain drain.
"Our role as Presidential staffers was to note areas requiring immediate, medium and long-term interventions, and they were just too many, in order to help shape effective health delivery policy.
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"It was clear from the visit that the whole health delivery hierarchy needed attention. "Failures at basic primary levels like clinics, municipal clinics and district hospitals transmitted themselves all the way to referral hospitals, leading to a system which is creaking from an overload, disrepair and fresh investments.
"Interventions have got to be systemic, a lack which in fact explains the rise of top-notch private care-givers who are a ringing antipode to massive failures in the public health system," Charamba wrote on his X account.
Zimbabwe's referral hospitals are overloaded and overwhelmed, as most primary care clinics are incapacitated and unable to handle even basic health issues.
The presidential spokesman also said Mnangagwa witnessed the Parirenyatwa Hospital's Mbuya Nehanda Maternity Wing operating without curtains or heating, compromising patient privacy and comfort.
Many wards do not have enough blankets, and most have broken windows.
Charamba added that there are serious administrative inefficiencies across the Ministries of Finance, Local Government, and Health that urgently require a more hands-on approach.
