Godfrey, 32 yrs, suffering from AIDS and too sick to work, survives through donations from friends and family. His relatives are unable to afford the Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs required to keep him alive. Seventy percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed. Mbare, Harare, Zimbabwe.
The State of Health Services in Zimbabwe
In 2007, Zimbabwe was ranked by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) as one of its "Top 10" underreported health crises in the world. Handicapped by alarming shortages of medical supplies and equipment - from sutures and intravenous fluids, to HIV testing kits and renal dialysis chemicals - most public health programs have ground to a halt. In addition to the lack of medicine and supplies, there has been a massive exodus of skilled health personnel, which has contributed to the wider deterioration of the public health sector. The cost of access to the medical system continues to soar and highly preventable deaths continue to shock.
Life expectancy at birth for males in Zimbabwe has dramatically declined since 1990, from 60 to 37, the lowest in the world. Life expectancy for females is even lower at 34 years. Concurrently, the infant mortality rate has climbed from 53 to 81 deaths per 1,000 live births in the same period. Currently, 1.8 million Zimbabweans living with HIV lack access to anti-retroviral drugs since 2006.
The failing infrastructure is a victim of the turbulent political climate. Thousands live without access to clean water and sewage spills have contaminated most reservoirs in the nation. Zimbabwe has seen drastic increases in the number of reported cases of serious diarrhea, cholera, anthrax and childhood epidemics like measles. Drugs and medicines to treat these and other diseases are in very short supply.
Zimbabwe's current crisis, described by some observers as the country's worst humanitarian crisis since independence in 1980, has been attributed to government gross mismanagement, severe nationwide drought and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Aside from the widening health and education crisis, there are the broader concerns of poverty, hunger, and homelessness. While the EU and the US provide humanitarian food aid, badly needed support from the International Monetary Fund has been suspended because of the Zimbabwean government's arrears on past loans and its unwillingness to enact reforms that would stabilize the economy. Not only has the Zimbabwean government (till February 2009) been indifferent to the poverty, malnutrition, and homelessness plaguing its population- it has been a contributing factor. The government initiative Murambatsvina (Drive Out Filth) saw hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans living in and around Harare, lose their homes, possessions and livelihoods.
In Harare, the nation’s capital, there is an almost total shut-down of the public water supply. Desperate residents are forced to dig shallow wells or source water from contaminated rivers and streams, exacerbating the risk of a serious health disaster.
The situation in hospitals remain deplorable. Most of the recent cholera sufferers were turned away from hospitals because of lack of medicine and fear of further spread of the disease
Mugabe and Tsvangirai at deal signing.
As political friction continues between President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF and Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the implementation of government interventions to address the cholera outbreak, distribute HIV medication and promote disease awareness campaigns have remained seriously impeded. The role of international humanitarian groups in Zimbabwe has become more critical than ever before.
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