Zimbabwe hospitals operating below capacity

Zimbabwe hospitals operating below capacity

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By Staff Reporter

A CRITICAL shortage of laboratory chemicals and theatre equipment has hit Zimbabwe's hospitals, with some centres failing to handle HIV/AIDS related cases, reports said Wednesday.

Zimbabwe's health sector has borne the brunt of a deepening economic crisis that has left hospitals grappling with shortages of essential drugs while poorly paid skilled workers have joined other professionals in leaving the country to find work.

According to officials, two of the country's major referral centres had been operating "far below capacity" over the last two years and turned away HIV positive patients due to the breakdown of laboratory chemicals and surgical equipment.

Others failed to get drugs because the hospitals did not have the foreign currency to buy imports.

"We have to make do with only two rapid on-spot HIV tests. But in the case of determinant results, we need the machines that ... we cannot use now due to their state of disrepair," a technician at one hospital said.

The hospital could now only test 30 specimens a day at most, from a previous 50, he said.

Health Minister David Parirenyatwa said: "The prevailing foreign currency shortages are hampering efforts to import reagents and spares for equipment."

Parirenyatwa and other health officials were not immediately reachable for comment.

Earlier this year, a senior health official told Reuters corpses of murder victims were piling up in Zimbabwe's mortuaries after the country's last forensic pathologist went abroad.

President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, denies charges from opponents and critics that he has run down one of Africa's most thriving economies through mismanagement.

The veteran leader says domestic and foreign opponents of his land seizures have wrecked the economy in retaliation over his drive to forcibly redistribute white-owned farms among blacks - Reuters
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