Zimbabwean nurse defends Machakaire

By Hopewell Chin’ono

A Zimbabwean nurse sent this message to me in response to an arrogant statement by the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MOHCC) this morning on its Facebook page, dismissing complaints about the dilapidated healthcare system as “unwarranted negative attacks”.

I have attached the Ministry of Health’s Facebook post below in the pictures section.

Letter from Nurse

Goodmorning mkoma Hope.

Just woke up to the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MOHCC) post and as a nurse am hurt to the core.

Clearly, they don’t know the pain yekutarisa people’s relatives in the eyes to tell them their loved one has died due to lack of proper care.

Clearly they don’t know the pain we feel watching patients vachirwara but unable to help them because we don’t have the resources to do so..

We do vital observations (using monitors that are faulty most of the times!).

The monitors are like refrigerators they only work when connected to a power supply and most of the sockets at the hospitals don’t work then magetsi akaenda (which is a common occurrence) it means we can’t even do the vital observations..

Okay taita the vital observations even if we note kuti the BP is elevated there is nothing we can do except just look at the patients because we don’t have medication to manage the elevated BPs.

Ndarwadziwa because they don’t know the pain of watching patients die after vapedza kutenga theatre sundries and theatre fee but operation ichi postponwer because Hapana electricity or the machines are not working.

They don’t know the pain of carrying patients nemastretcher or wheelchairs up 2 floors of stairs because the elevators are not working.

They don’t know the pain of letting patients lie on wet blankets which reek of urine because the laundry machine is not working for 2 weeks (kana paipa towaridza nema curtain until aperao)

My prayer ndichirarama kuti ndisarware because kurwara muZimbabwe is a death sentence especially if you a civil servant.

CT scan machines not working at our hospitals so they are done at private institutions at $350..pay yemucivil servant 300 minus tax haitokwane..

Ndabatikana.