The prevailing requirement that patients admitted to our hospitals must pay cash upfront if they are in need of blood is as inhuman as it is scandalous for any self-respecting nation.
NewsDay Editorial
It is common knowledge that the majority of our people cannot afford even the minimal hospital fees charged at government hospitals — which is why payment arrangements (usually small instalments) are made for those that have some kind of income.
To suggest then that everybody that needs the life-giving blood or blood products must pay cash upfront is nothing short of insanity, because it literally means leaving a lot of people to die when lives could have been saved.
What has necessitated this is the failure by government and private hospitals to pay the National Blood Services Zimbabwe (NBSZ) for the blood and blood products delivered to them.
Government institutions owe NBSZ about $800 000, while private hospitals’ arrears amounted to $200 000 as of January this year. The health delivery institutions have now decided to pass on the pressure to patients by putting their lives at ransom — demanding that they buy their blood requirements in cash from the NBSZ.
This absurdity has been extended to the provision of even intravenous therapy, commonly referred to as “drip”. These otherwise basic medical requirements that should ideally be provided in hospitals are no longer found at most health institutions. Sick people must buy them from pharmacies with cash.
The same has become the case with even test tubes required for collecting blood and urine for tests! It is inconceivable that this government is unable to provide such essential and basic health requirements as blood and test tubes when our leaders can embark on worthless trips to far-off lands where they spend fortunes in taxpayers’ money.
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How can this government with all its minerals and other resources fail to pay $800 000 for over a year in order to save the lives of its citizens while it allows corrupt ministers to amass obscene wealth and brag about it in front of the same poor people they are robbing?
Unless we have responsible national leaders, this country will remain classified as poor while individuals are rated among the richest in the world.
Priority is being given to the protection of thieves while the majority continues to languish in poverty so that they continue to hero-worship the thieves when they come down with an occasional bowl of mealie-meal in faked benevolence.
Is it any wonder then that we have a whole Cabinet agreeing, like dodoes, to recruit and train hundreds more policemen and soldiers while qualified nurses sit at home and hospitals are manned by skeletal staff?
