President Robert Mugabe, his daughter, Bona Mugabe and wife Grace Mugabe.
EVEN
though she may not be using public funds, the choice by President
Robert Mugabe's daughter, Bona, to deliver her new baby in far-flung
Singapore, betrays the First Family's hypocrisy and its lack of
confidence in the country's healthcare facilities.
Like her father who
gets medical attention at the state-of-the-art Gleneagles Hospital and
Medical Centre in Singapore, Bona will anytime now give birth to
Mugabe's first grandchild in the Far East country, illustrating their
family's lack of trust in local health institutions.
Mugabe's wife Grace
also gets treatment in Singapore. On arriving from his annual vacation
in January last year, Mugabe revealed his wife had an appendix removed
and was recuperating in the Far East.
The First Family's
decision that Bona should fly more than 8 000 kilometres across the
Indian Ocean to give birth is widely seen as a comment on the state of
the country's health delivery system.
While other
prominent people, including the royals in Britain, proudly give birth in
their own countries of origin, Bona has been flown to distant foreign
lands to do so.
The Duchess of
Cambridge, Catherine, who is wife to Prince William, delivered her
first-born child Prince George at St Mary's Hospital in West London in
2013. She also delivered her daughter Princess Charlotte at the same
hospital in 2015.
Princess Diana, who
was married to Prince Charles, also delivered her two sons, William and
Harry, at the same hospital in 1982 and 1984 respectively.
Although Zimbabwe
has some relatively good private hospitals which offer quality maternity
services, among them Avenues Hospital, Baines Hospital and Belvedere
Maternity Hospital, it seems they are not good enough for the
president's daughter and her well-off family.
Before health
services collapsed under Mugabe's rule, the First Family apparently had
confidence in the country's facilities. Mugabe and Grace's three
children Bona, Robert Junior and Chatunga were born in Zimbabwe.
However, with the
economic decline which worsened after 2000 due to leadership and policy
failures, Zimbabwe's major hospitals are now experiencing massive drug
shortages, some which are very basic but essential, while critical
equipment also broke down and has not been repaired or replaced.
Doctors, nurses and specialists also left the country en masse.
The shortages of personnel and drugs persist up to this day.
Drugs that are
currently out of stock or in short supply at major public hospitals
include clexane injection (which prevents and treats blood clots),
morphine injection and tablets, warfarin (an anticoagulant used to
prevent new blood clots from forming and helps stop clots from
worsening), and benzathine penicillin, an antibiotic useful for the
treatment of bacterial infections.
Other drugs also in
short supply include antibiotics like benzyl penicillin, ceftriaxone
and rocephin, clorpheniramine which treats sneezing, watery eyes and
itchy nose, amphotericin B, an anti-fungal, atropine which helps keep
the heart rate stable after a heart attack or during surgery, gentamicin
which treats eye infections and kanamycin used to treat a variety of
infections, among many others.
At times even
betadine, glycerine, crepe bandages and ichthammol ointment used for
minor skin injuries can be out of stock, leaving patients with no choice
but to buy their own supplies.
It has also become common for patients to buy their own intravenous bags (drips) which cost US$1,50 each.
In her report for
the year-ended December 31 2014, Comptroller and Auditor-General,
Mildred Chiri, painted a grim picture of the state of the country's
major hospitals. She warned they were on the verge of collapse due to a
combination of incompetence, corruption and neglect.
She pointed out,
for example, that most equipment at the United Bulawayo Hospital, one of
the country's biggest referral hospitals, was outdated and had outlived
its lifespan.
Chiri also
highlighted how Parirenyatwa Hospital, the country's biggest referral
hospital, was operating with a serious shortage of critical medical
equipment, putting at risk the lives of thousands of patients who cannot
afford private health institutions.
In her report for
the year ending December 31 2011, Chiri said Parirenyatwa Hospital had
four malfunctioning critical machines which include CT scan model
Siemens, Magnetic Resonance Imaging unit, the digital subtraction
angiography (DSA) machine and fluorescent unit.
Last week, health
minister David Parirenyatwa condemned, without a sense of irony, the
maternity ward at Chiredzi General Hospital during a tour of the
institution. The hospital was built in 1967.
The hospital was carrying out pre-natal and neo-natal services in one room.
Given the state of
the country's health delivery institutions, which badly deteriorated
under Mugabe's watch, it is therefore not surprising that the First
Family prefers to get medical treatment outside the country,
particularly from Singapore where there are advanced facilities.
Ironically,
Singapore was a poor country at Independence from Britain in 1959 and
after complete self-rule following its ejection from Malaysia in August
1965. The country had a plethora of problems, including mass
unemployment, housing shortages, lack of land and natural resources.
However, during Lee
Kuan Yew's term as prime minister from 1959 to 1990, his administration
reduced unemployment, raised the standard of living and implemented
large-scale public housing programme, while developing the country's
economic and oil infrastructure.
Singapore has
arable land of 0,90% according to the World Bank, but it has put in
place attractive policies to draw foreign direct investment which has
boosted economic growth.
It has risen from a
small dependent state to having the seventh highest Gross Domestic
Product at purchasing power parity per capita in the world in 2013,
according to the World Bank, and in 2014 its GDP was worth US$307,86
billion.
Harvard School of
Public Health lists Singapore as having one of the best health care
facilities in the world, giving Mugabe and his family reason to seek
treatment there.
Ironically,
however, unlike Lee Kuan Yew, Mugabe inherited a country with a vibrant
economy, lots of natural resources and vast tracts of arable land, which
former Tanzanian President Juilius Nyerere described as the "Jewel of
Africa". But under his stewardship, the nation and its economy has
dramatically collapsed, and the health sector has not been spared.
Social commentator
Blessing Vava says Mugabe should be ashamed that he is being treated
abroad after destroying the country's health delivery system.
"Sending Bona to
Singapore to give birth is a clear admission on the part of Mugabe's
family that the health delivery system in this country is now a
death-trap. What is unfortunate though is that many Zimbabweans, who are
mostly poor, suffer at these local facilities whose charges are
astronomical yet at the same time deplorable," he said.
"The Mugabe regime
doesn't care anymore about the welfare of its citizens. All this
(foreign treatment for the president and his family) is being done using
taxpayers money, bleeding the fiscus in an already imploding economy.
They say charity
begins at home and for Mugabe it is shameful for him to boast about it
as if it's fashionable that his daughter is going to give birth in a
foreign land when he is in charge of the country and its health sector."
MDC-T spokesperson
Obert Gutu said: "It boggles the mind why Bona Mugabe-Chikore, who is
ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe, will fly all the way to the Far East
simply to give birth. We have got some advanced and well-equipped
maternity hospitals right here in Harare and one just wonders why the
Mugabe family always invariably prefers to travel abroad for their
medical needs."
People Democratic Party spokesperson Jacob Mafume said the whole issue betrays Mugabe's fake patriotism and hypocrisy.
"This is the one
(Mugabe) who claims that Africa is for Africans and Zimbabwe is his, yet
his grandchild will by choice not even be a citizen of Zimbabwe by
birth. It just shows his hypocrisy," Mafume said.
While Bona, enjoys
the luxuries of Singapore, 2012 statistics show that each day eight
women die while giving birth, and 100 children die from childbirth and
neonatal complications.
These women cannot choose where to give birth, they just have to make-do with what Mugabe's government offers them.
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