Cash-strapped Health ministry seeks donations

By Bridget Mananavire

Health minister David Parirenyatwa, has appealed to the corporate world and farmers to assist institutions that are struggling to provide service due insufficient funding by Treasury.

The country’s health sector is heavily dependent on donor support due to poor financial support by government, with Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa allocating the crucial department only $281,9 million in the 2017 national budget, out of which Parirenyatwa said $200 million-plus will go towards salaries.

Due to the funding challenges, Parirenyatwa revealed that a group of Zimbabweans based in Europe were assisting in the expansion of local hospitals.

“The budget allocation was very, very small for us . . . and we know that three quarters . . . of it is going towards salaries, so we have very little to use as recurrent costs and for infrastructure, it’s a very small amount so it’s not a pleasing budget,” he said at the donation of six tonnes of meat to Harare Central Hospital by Delta Corporation.

“You (Delta) have given us  meat, we will look for others who can give us linen, toiletries, detergents, food, even our new farmers, they should also bring us vegetables, just one truckload, fruits, to our institutions, it goes a long way this will help us on malnutrition and stunting, which is at 28 percent currently,” he said.

Parirenyatwa said those in the Diaspora — under the banner ZimHealth — assisted in the expansion of Mabvuku Polyclinic and were planning the same for Ntabazinduna and Mpilo Central hospitals.

“I think Zimbabweans are becoming themselves the donors and that’s how it should be. So I am urging the cooperate world to look at us kindly . . .”

He said health, education and economy should be the goals of human development.

“As a country, we should be able to say our priority is the health delivery system and say, let’s push  money into the health delivery system and that is not happening as I speak. The money coming to health is little, that make us get shortage of drugs, shortage of morphine, pethidine and issues like that. And our hospitals are struggling to raise funds, and they continue to be resourceful under very difficult circumstances,” Parirenyatwa said. Daily News