As Zimbabweans raise their voices in celebration of Workers Day, one song keeps echoing across the nation—the growing cry for a functional healthcare system.
For years, calls to fix Zimbabwe’s broken health sector have been sung like a chorus, but now the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) warns the tune is growing more desperate and the silence from authorities more deafening.
In a statement, CWGH called out the government for failing to tackle corruption and exploitation in the healthcare system, warning of a looming collapse as major international donors begin pulling the plug on funding.
“It is undeniable that the deplorable state of the country’s health system requires urgent attention, especially giving priority to revitalising the Primary Health Care concept and philosophy that once worked so well and gave Zimbabwe health leadership within the SADC region and beyond in the yesteryear,” said CWGH.
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The health advocacy group urged government to move beyond rhetoric and take real action.
“The government should develop concrete actions not only to address the current and pressing health sector requirements but ensure that the impending transitioning out of major funders that has been announced is factored into the national planning for domestic resources mobilisation for health and its determinants for the long haul,” read the statement.
Zimbabwe’s public healthcare sector is heavily reliant on Western development partners, a fragile safety net that is fraying fast.
Donor withdrawals threaten to plunge already struggling hospitals and clinics into deeper crisis.
CWGH also sounded the alarm on worsening brain drain, dilapidated facilities, medicine shortages, and poor pay for health workers.
The group stressed that without new domestic health financing strategies, the goal of Universal Health Coverage will remain a dream.
“The government, therefore, needs to design and implement new and innovative domestic health financing policies to fund a strengthened primary health care strategy to achieve Universal Health Coverage,” CWGH wrote.
Meanwhile, Zimbabweans in remote and rural communities continue to suffer.
According to CWGH, some still travel over 30 km sometimes by scotch-cart or wheelbarrow to reach the nearest clinic, despite a long-standing government promise to build health facilities within a 10 km radius.
Even when they arrive, many patients can’t afford care. What should be free has become costly, with individuals now expected to pay for basic services such as blood, medication, and diagnostic tests.
