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Zimbabwean health service in death throes

Zimbabwe's health service is no longer in danger of collapse. It has collapsed, a doctors' group said on Monday.

"It's chaotic. Don't get sick right now," said one Zimbabwean doctor who asked not to be identified as strike action left sick and infirm patients at a main government hospital on Monday uncertain they would get attention, even for minor ailments.

Some drifted away from the outpatients' lobby at Parirenyatwa hospital in Harare as work stoppages by junior doctors, nurses and hospital staff over pay and deteriorating working conditions continued and were spreading.

Doctors and staff who showed up for duty were overwhelmed and could not bridge the gap left by striking colleagues, hospital officials said.

A doctors' group said on Monday the government had failed to "address the prevailing emergency in the public health sector."

The Zimbabwean Association of Doctors for Human Rights said the crisis left all the nation's major referral hospitals unable to function.

"It can no longer be said the health service is near collapse. The emptying of central and other hospitals of staff, and therefore patients, means the health service has collapsed," the group said in a statement.

It said even if staff were not on strike, most could not afford transport fares to reach their posts that now exceeded monthly incomes.

Several other clinics and public health facilities were also affected by strike action that has been sporadic for the past month. Zimbabwe is also facing acute shortages of drugs and basic medical equipment.

The gasoline price rose last week and commuter bus fares generally doubled. From Monday, a hospital cleaner earning the equivalent of about US$25 a month expected to pay up to US$3 a day on transport to and from work.

Business executives also reported growing absenteeism.

The doctors' group said absenteeism by doctors and health staff in the same predicament across the country was causing loss of life. No details of increased deaths were immediately available.

Hospital officials, however, confirmed details of the reported case of a 50-year-old woman who was admitted to one state health facility on Wednesday after falling and dislocating her hip. She was discharged Friday without being examined by a doctor and told go to a functioning private medical practice -- and there were other cases like it, said officials not permitted to speak without authority of their superiors or be identified.

Health Minister David Parirenyatwa said on Monday the government health service was broke and appealed to businesses and corporate interests to "rescue" it, the official Herald newspaper reported on Monday.

"It is a question of social responsibility," he told the paper.

He said many medical professionals found jobs outside the country after suffering "burn out" caused by watching as patients suffered or died through the lack of staff, medicines and equipment.
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