THE Health and Child Care ministry this week proudly announced the procurement of a heart-lung machine and a heater-cooler system for Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals.
It was presented as a breakthrough — a long-awaited step toward strengthening specialised healthcare and bringing Zimbabwe closer to universal health coverage.
There is no doubt that this equipment matters.
Open-heart surgery is impossible without a heart-lung machine.
During these delicate procedures, the device temporarily takes over the functions of the lungs and the heart, keeping patients alive while surgeons conduct complex interventions.
The heater-cooler system is equally essential, regulating body temperature to ensure safe and successful outcomes.
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For years, the absence and scarcity of such equipment have severely limited the number of cardiac surgeries performed locally.
Many patients have been forced to seek treatment outside the country or simply go without.
Yet, even as we celebrate this milestone, the bigger picture demands a pause.
Parirenyatwa — the country’s largest referral hospital — still lacks critical cancer treatment machines.
Same as United Bulawayo Hospitals and Mpilo Central Hospital.
Other public hospitals across Zimbabwe face shortages of the most basic supplies: bandages, gloves, medicines, functioning beds, diagnostic tools.
Families queue for hours to buy drugs from private pharmacies because hospital pharmacies are empty.
Doctors and nurses work miracles under conditions that would make policymakers shudder — if they bothered to look.
And that is precisely where the problem begins.
Because while the Health ministry is trying to plug decades-old gaps, the country’s political leadership is busy flaunting its priorities in high definition.
Just yesterday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa donated a fleet of brand-new, top-of-the-range vehicles to Zanu PF women’s league top executives, some MPs who had not benefited from earlier allocations and members of Young Women for ED.
The list of vehicles reads like a luxury catalogue: six Toyota Land Cruiser LC300 models (each costing around US$180 000), 21 Toyota Hilux GD-6 double cabs (about US$70 000 apiece) and five Hilux GD-6 single cabs (roughly US$40 000 each).
In total, roughly US$2,75 million worth of cars rolled out to political actors in a country whose hospitals cannot perform basic cancer treatments.
Imagine what that same US$2,75 million could do at Parirenyatwa, Mpilo Central Hospital, United Bulawayo Hospitals, Sally Mugabe Central Hospital or Chitungwiza Central Hospital.
How many heart-lung machines would that buy?
How many radiotherapy units?
How many dialysis machines?
How many operating theatres could be refurbished?
How many wards could finally receive functional beds, adequate linen, gloves, syringes and life-saving medications?
The gap between what the country needs and what its leaders choose to prioritise is not simply a budgeting issue, it is a moral indictment.
Zimbabwe’s top officials rarely seek treatment at public hospitals.
They fly to South Africa, the United Arab Emirates or China for check-ups, scans and surgeries.
Because they are insulated from the reality of the healthcare collapse, they feel no urgency to address it.
Their families do not queue at Parirenyatwa.
Their children are not told to return next month because the CT scan machine is broken.
Their relatives are not turned away because the radiotherapy equipment has been down for weeks.
So naturally, the priorities are skewed.
Cars first.
Patients later — if ever.
Until national leadership chooses hospitals over political loyalty, equipment over convoys and service delivery over patronage, Zimbabwe’s healthcare crisis will remain a wound that never heals.
The heart-lung machine is a welcome development, but it is a drop in an ocean of neglect.
True progress requires more than ribbon-cutting ceremonies and Press statements.
It requires the political courage to stop doling out cars and start equipping the hospitals that ordinary Zimbabweans rely on for survival.