| Anty Ep |
08-03-2007 11:24 AM |
descent into Hell: Zimbabwe
this place was once called "Rhodesia" when whites ran it. now blacks do. draw your own conclusions on the topic of "survival"
Quote:
http://www.telegrap<WBR>h.co.uk/news/<WBR>main.jhtml?<WBR>xml=/news/<WBR>2007/08/02/<WBR>wzim102.xml
Zimbabwe's hospital system 'beyond help'
By Sebastien Berger
Last Updated: 2:15am 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.
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"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.
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£60m appeal to buy rations for starving
More than four million people in Zimbabwe will need food aid by
November.
"Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans are already starting to
run out of food and several million more will be reliant on humanitarian
assistance by the end of the year," said Amir Abdulla of the World Food
Programme.
The programme appealed for £60 million to buy 207,000 tons of
survival rations.
Information appearing on telegraph.co.<WBR>uk is the copyright of Telegraph
Media Group Limited
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