Zimbabwe fires doctors as Foreign minister SB Moyo admitted to SA hospital

Just a few days after President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government sanctioned the dismissal of over 286 medical doctors, Foreign Affairs Minister Sibusiso Moyo was on Tuesday admitted to a South African hospital for what was described as a “scheduled operation”.

Presidential spokesman George Charamba is quoted saying; “This is a scheduled operation. I can’t vouch that he is now admitted. But I am aware this was a pending event, after Mauritius.”

Moyo was recently in Mauritius and Botswana with Zanu PF spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo. The two were part of a SADC Election Observer Mission which they led.

Last year Moyo was flown to South Africa for medical treatment after being hospitalised at the Avenues Clinic in Harare for two weeks. Unnamed sources at the hospital were quoted as saying the former lieutenant general had been on dialysis for some time after he underwent surgery.

Former Daily News editor Stanley Gama writing on Twitter said; “So it’s confirmed that SB Moyo is in SA for an op. I obviously pray he gets well. SB and Zanu PF bigwigs can be flown to SA for treatment, but does this govt ever think of the thousands dying due to lack of medical care. @edmnangagwa people are dying like rats in Zim.”

Another high profile official, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga has spent the last four months in China, after also receiving treatment in South Africa and India. All this while the government refuses to pay doctors a living wage and began the process of firing them for going on strike.

Health minister Obadiah Moyo, speaking at a post-Cabinet briefing yesterday, claimed that government coffers were empty.

“The issue of dialoguing never stopped. As a ministry, we have been talking to the junior doctors. We have been talking to the senior doctors. The other time, I had junior doctors who came to my office. We made each other see the reality that there is no money.

“We even invited personnel from the Ministry of Finance who explained to them in detail and they were left without any doubt that there was no money in government coffers,” Moyo said.

But while the government claims it is broke, senior government officials, including the President and his two Vice Presidents, and various members of the cabinet are spending millions of taxpayer dollars getting treatment abroad when they fall sick. Nehanda Radio