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Harare, Zimbabwe – On January 20, Zimbabweans were shocked to hear the news of the death of Foreign Minister Sibusiso Moyo, the latest government official to succumb to COVID-19.
The 61-year-old, who rose to fame after appearing on state television on November 15, 2017 to announce the military coup that toppled President Robert Mugabe, died in a private hospital in the capital, Harare, days after test positive for coronavirus.
Moyo was the third Cabinet Minister to die of COVID-19 in recent weeks amid a surge in the pandemic (Transportation Minister Joel Biggie Matiza and Manicaland Devolution and Provincial Affairs Minister Ellen Gwaradzimba , were the other two) and the fourth in total (Agriculture Minister Perrance Shiri passed away in July).
In pre-pandemic times, such powerful figures would normally have been transported out of Zimbabwe to seek medical care in countries like South Africa or China. But with the stricter restrictions currently restricting international travel, senior officials now come face to face with the reality of a crippled healthcare system that they would normally avoid for paid treatments abroad.
“Political elites in Zimbabwe have been forced to deal with local healthcare that has collapsed for several years,” said analyst Vivid Gwede.
Throughout his decades-long tenure, Mugabe routinely sought medical care abroad, primarily in Singapore, where he also died in 2019 at the age of 95.
He was not the only one.
In 2017, the current president and then vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was flown to South Africa following a suspicion of food poisoning at one of the rallies of the ruling ZANU-PF. In July 2019, Presidential spokesman George Charamba confirmed that Vice President Constantino Chiwenga had been transferred to China for treatment.
Chiwenga, who was also appointed Zimbabwe’s health minister in August, said earlier this year that the government planned to ban Zimbabwean medical travel abroad, saying that overseas referrals were draining the country’s coffers.
“The ministers are only about 20, but the ones who have been leaving are you, you, me, in total. That [medical] The export bill was too high and that is what we want to reduce, ”Chiwenga said in September.
‘Equalizer’
As of January 30, Zimbabwe has confirmed 33,273 coronavirus cases, with 1,193 related deaths, up from 14,084 and 369, respectively, on January 1.
Other Zimbabwean bigwigs who succumbed to COVID-19 earlier this month include former Deputy Finance Minister in the 1980s Morton Malianga, former Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere and former Prison Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi.
“What COVID-19 has shown is that it is an ‘equalizer.’ It showed us that we need solidarity as human beings, not accumulation of wealth and greed, ”said Maxwell Saungweme, a Harare political analyst, underscoring that COVID-19 is a non-selective disease that affects both rich and poor.
“The government now better understands the realities poor citizens face as a result of poor service delivery. COVID-19 has demonstrated the need to invest in public health locally and not divert funds ”.
On Friday, Chiwenga extended the country’s lockdown for two more weeks, warning that variants of the coronavirus could be circulating.
“These strains are more transmissible and infectious. We are doing genomic sequencing to see if these strains are in our environment, “he said in a televised speech.
‘Smell the coffee’
The worrying rebound comes as the country is going through its worst economic crisis in decades, despite promises by Mnangagwa to replace Mugabe to revitalize a fragile economy battered by years of corruption and mismanagement. The cost of living has skyrocketed due to rampant hyperinflation, while stagnant wages, currency instability, shortages of foreign exchange, and shortages of basic goods such as electricity and water have left many Zimbabweans in trouble.
The health sector has not been spared either. For more than two years, doctors and nurses have been on strike, intermittently, over inadequate wages and poor working conditions and, more recently, over shortages of medicines and personal protective equipment (PPE).
But their demands have apparently fallen on deaf ears.
In the 2021 budget, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube allocated 12.74 percent of the national budget to the health sector, below the threshold set by the Abuja Declaration that requires African Union member states to allocate at least 15 percent of their annual budgets to improving the health sector. .
Harare’s public hospitals have only 30 beds of intensive care units, according to Norman Matara, secretary of the Zimbabwe Physicians for Human Rights Association.
“You need to pay the doctors properly,” Gwede said. “There is a need to constantly invest in medical science within the country. Politicians should wake up and smell the coffee. “
Shingai Nyaguse, president of the Zimbabwe Major Hospital Physicians Association, said more funding is needed to address the country’s public health challenges.
“We hope that all politicians, businessmen and ordinary citizens see that well-functioning public hospitals are the best for everyone,” said Nyaguse.
“We hope that politicians are advocates for the well-being of healthcare workers, as well as better healthcare financing and that the nation can unite for this cause.”
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