President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said that the country needs to fix its health care system because it is losing a lot of money when people seek specialized health care outside the country. Mnangagwa noted that this was due to poorly equipped facilities as well as lack of critical drugs. Writing in the Sunday Mail, Mnangagwa said,
Many Zimbabweans are turning to foreign countries for specialised healthcare. This is very expensive for our nation. Zimbabwe’s healthcare is not competitive, relative to similar services in other countries, developing or developed. But the story goes further than affordability.
“It is also about sparse skills in the country, and about poorly-equipped health facilities. Yet what we end up spending on foreign care more than doubles what we need to build these specialist skills, and to equip and stock our specialised hospitals for more advanced interventions.
Ironically, government officials seem to head the list of people who seek medical care outside the country. Former president Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace are infamous for seeking health care in Singapore including for routine medical checkups. When Mnangagwa was poisoned last year he was airlifted to South Africa for medicals treatment. Early this year when Vice President Kembo Mohadi and Defence Minister Oppah Muchinguri were injured in a bomb explosion, the pair was also airlifted to South Africa.
More: NewsDay
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