ZIMBABWE’S HEALTH SYSTEM HAS FALLEN BACK TO THE STONE AGE
Zimbabwe’s health sector is broken. This is something everybody knows now. After 45 years under ZANU PF, things have become even worse. Our country is moving backwards to a time when people had no hospitals or proper treatment. Life has become hard, and getting sick is now a real danger.
A picture that many people have seen shows a patient with a broken limb wrapped in a cardboard box and tape. This shocked the whole nation. It shows how far Zimbabwe has fallen. Hospitals do not have the things they need to help people. The whole health sector is in a deep crisis, just like the rest of the country.
Today, Zimbabwe’s hospitals have no medicine and no basic tools. There is no proper funding from the government. Many doctors and nurses are leaving the country. They go to places where they are paid well and can work in good conditions. Because of this, Zimbabwe now has very few skilled medical workers, especially specialists. Our hospitals have become places where people go to die.
Even simple things like bandages and painkillers are hard to find. Many people do not get the treatment they need. Diseases that should be easy to control are now killing many people.
This problem is not new. In 2008, Zimbabwe had a terrible cholera outbreak. It spread fast and killed 4,288 people. That outbreak lasted from August 2008 to July 2009. But even now, things have not changed. Between 2023 and 2024, another 700 people died from cholera. How can a country allow the same disaster to happen again and again?
The problem is not only disease outbreaks. The whole system is collapsing. The government does not give enough money to hospitals. Instead, Zimbabwe depends on donors from other countries to keep the health sector alive.
Countries like the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Sweden send money through the Health Development Fund. This fund, run by UNICEF, helps pay for maternal and child health care. Other groups like the United Nations Population Fund and the Global Fund also support Zimbabwe. Without these donors, the health sector would not survive at all.
Reports say about 25% of Zimbabwe’s health budget comes from donors. This means a quarter of all money for healthcare is from foreign countries. But most of this money is only for certain diseases like HIV, malaria, and maternal health. It does not fix the whole system.
The situation may get worse. The United States used to help Zimbabwe a lot through PEPFAR. But now the US government has decided to reduce this support. When this money stops, many people who depend on it will suffer.
In rural areas the crisis is even worse. Many people have no access to doctors or proper clinics. Some walk long distances to a hospital, only to find there is no medicine or no doctor to help them.
Zimbabwe is facing a big health crisis. People are suffering from many diseases, both infectious and non-communicable. But the government has failed to fix the situation. Hospitals have no staff, no equipment, and no medicine. Many people die not because their sickness cannot be treated, but because there are no resources.
ZANU PF has failed the people. The state of our health system shows a government that does not care. How can a country go back to using cardboard and tape in hospitals? Zimbabwe has gone backwards to the Stone Age. And if nothing changes, the suffering will only grow.
Cholera killing people again in the 2020s is not bad luck. It is criminal neglect. Any serious government would have fixed water systems after 2008. ZANU PF chose corruption instead. Now the same graves are being dug again. These deaths are on the hands of leaders who fly first class while clinics have no painkillers.
That cardboard picture is not an accident. It is the true uniform of ZANU PF governance. Forty-five years of looting, lies, and empty speeches have dragged our hospitals into medieval conditions. A government that forces patients to be wrapped in boxes instead of bandages has no moral right to rule. This is not poverty. This is political violence against the sick.
Donors are carrying a government that refuses to carry its own people. Imagine a country where 25 percent of health funding comes from outsiders while ministers buy new cars every year. This is not sovereignty. This is dependency wrapped in nationalist slogans. If donors leave, ZANU PF will expose just how empty the state really is.