Posted on 08/01/2007 6:21:40 PM PDT by blam
Zimbabwe's hospital system 'beyond help'
By Sebastien Berger
Last Updated: 1:44am BST 02/08/2007
A young girl had to have her leg amputated because no antibiotics were available to treat her wounds
The public hospitals of Zimbabwe, once a model for Africa, have become waiting rooms for death.
A doctor at one of the country's five central hospitals - the biggest and supposedly best equipped health care centres in the country - laid bare the desperate state of the system.
"Patients are dying of things like dehydration - in a hospital," he said.
Neither the doctor nor his institution can be identified for fear of reprisals. During the interview, held in the back seat of a car, he looked around to check for observers at least a dozen times.
"We no longer have a system. Now it's beyond any form of help," he said, citing the example of a young girl admitted after a falling rock crushed her thigh and broke her shin.
"I couldn't clean the wound except with tap water. She needed surgery but there were no anaesthetic drugs.
"After three days we could operate but by that time gangrene had set in. We had no antibiotics and ended up amputating her leg. She is a 10-year-old girl." He shook his head sadly.
He listed some of the items his hospital has run out of: penicillin, insulin, painkillers, bandages, hydrogen peroxide, gauze, plaster, X-ray film, sterile gloves, surgical blades and intravenous fluids.
"Most of the staff have left. Some emergencies like appendicitis are no longer emergencies. We have got to the stage where with any condition not deemed life threatening, we are not operating," he said.
Patients have to wait for hours to see a doctor and must buy all their own medical supplies. If they cannot pay they cannot be treated, he said, pointing out that the first litre of intravenous fluids and a set of equipment to administer it costs Z$1.5million - half a civil servant's monthly salary.
"Every ward round you do you record 'patient is severely dehydrated, patient needs fluids, patient can't afford fluids'. You are literally watching patients die in your hands of correctable illnesses."
With President Robert Mugabe's government unable to import supplies because of the collapsing Zimbabwean dollar, the doctor has learned not to respond to the desperate pleas of the sick and their relatives. "I tell them, 'My hands are tied, I can't do anything for you'.
"This is how I am now. It hardens the heart, it annihilates hope, it obliterates the whole purpose of coming to work. You can't easily forgive yourself."
The doctor has just received a 540 per cent pay rise, to Z$9 million a month, about £30 at black market exchange rates and not enough to live on. "I can't remember the last time I bought myself an item from a clothing shop," he said. "Almost everyone tries to do something to get the extra dollar."
One of his colleagues has resorted to making bootleg CDs, while others use the hospital's internet access to look for a job abroad, most commonly in South Africa, Australia or New Zealand.
The doctor's description is a graphic confirmation of a United Nations report last month, which pointed out shortages of essential drugs and intravenous fluids.
Stella Allberry, health spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said: "This government wants to pretend everything is wonderful. They are hiding their dead, they are hiding their ill and they are hiding the fact that nothing works.
"People are letting their families die at home rather than trying the hospitals. In our country you are an old man if you are 55."
The average life expectancy in Zimbabwe is now 37 for men and 34 for women.
Mothers, she added, had told her: "I just want my children to be a bit bigger, then I can die. No one dreams further than that."
Officials from Zimbabwe's ministry of health and child welfare could not be reached for comment.
GGG Ping.
I think that I am going to sick up.
Why doesn’t Michael Moore go over there to document this horror?/s
It will be interesting to see how the left will blame George Bush for Zimbabwe’s utter failure. And you can bet that Mugabe has all the fluids he needs.
africawinsagain...
The UN will tell you it was sooooo much worse when the white men ruled it. Once the breadbasket of Africa, the people are now starving because if Mugabe’s thievery and the people like him who are raping the country to enrich themselves.
Rhodesia was once a great country.
The creation currently occupying that geographic area has reverted to type.
How anyone is surprised at the current state of affairs is well beyond me.
“She needed surgery but there were no anaesthetic drugs.”
“After three days we could operate but by that time gangrene had set in. We had no antibiotics and ended up amputating her leg. She is a 10-year-old girl.” He shook his head sadly.
TIME OUT!!!!
They couldn’t operate to save the leg because there were no anethetics but they could amputate the leg? What did they use for anesthetics?
Bingo! Another Jimmuh Carter achievement: he liberated Rhodesia from the rule of the vile racist white colonialist farmers but he forgot to invent a way for the local blacks to eat without the vile white colonialist farmers around to grow the food.
Well, on the bright side, Jimmuh saved the black Zimbabweans from the scourge of obesity - the Carter / Mugabe weight loss diet of grass stew and sucking on pebbles will take the fat off fast.
The quick solution for this problem is for the locals to overthrow Comrade Mugabe and get on their knees and beg the British Ambassador for the English colonialists to return to run the country again - then they would have food to eat.
Mugape is so much better than Ian Smith’s government. At least now, NEARLY everyone lives in torment.
Thanks Jimmah Carter and your boy Andy Young!!
Too bad Nicaragua escaped your plans.
While this is beyond horrible it is far more a problem that the UN was intended for. If they can’t find a way to divert Mugabe’s caviar money for the needs of the children under his governance I can’t see it being a U.S. responsibility.
Neither are the problems in Darfur.
The U.S. Government is largely responsible for Mugape being in office to begin with. A democratically elected leader was disposed because of Young and Carter’s actions.
“I remember the leftists singing their praises of “Zimbabwe!” (and “Fidelll!”) back in the late 70s. Betcha they ain’t singing that song any more — anymore than they’re admitting they were wrong, wrong, wrong.”
I bet they do not admit they are wrong anymore than Carter does today. Also, I bet they still priase Mugape.
“I remember the leftists singing their praises of “Zimbabwe!” (and “Fidelll!”) back in the late 70s. Betcha they ain’t singing that song any more — anymore than they’re admitting they were wrong, wrong, wrong.”
I bet they do not admit they are wrong anymore than Carter does today. Also, I bet they still praise Mugape.
There, I fixed the headline.
Probably the classics - leather straps and a bullet to bite on.
Better a starving slave of a black master, than a nourished employee of a white businessman...
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