‘Politicians must stop victimising health professionals’
THE Environmental Management Agency (EMA) has closed its head office in Bluffhill and laboratory at KGVI after a staff member tested positive for coronavirus.
In a notice to stakeholders, EMA said the offices would be closed for an indefinite period.
“The agency would like to notify
INFORMAL traders, who are currently unable to ply their trade on the capital’s pavements, have invaded open spaces around industrial areas, mainly in Graniteside, posing a COVID-19 health hazard as they flout lockdown regulations.
Since relaxation of the COVID-19 lockdown in April, NewsDay has regularly witnessed informal traders, who are flocking to factories and wholesalers in the industrial area to purchase plastic buckets, blankets, plates and clothing items, among others, jostling to buy their wares without observing social distancing or wearing face masks.
Frustrated shop attendants’ efforts to enforce social distancing in the queues have failed to bear fruit.
Some enterprising vendors display their goods on open spaces to sell to those who are not keen on pushing and shoving in the meandering queues at the wholesalers.
The hordes of informal traders, despite the many roadblocks set up by security forces to enforce lockdown regulations, still find their way to the industrial areas.
Harare City Council spokesperson Michael Chideme yesterday said the informal sector should adhere to COVID-19 guidelines.
“Our law enforcement section is working to ensure that the informal sector adheres to the COVID-19 protocols and guidelines,” Chideme said.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration in March pledged $600 million to cushion one million vulnerable families over three months, but has only disbursed funds to 200 000 beneficiaries. The majority of Zimbabweans work in the informal sector.
Speaking to NewsDay on condition
MARGINALISED communities with limited or no mobile access are set to benefit from an agreement between telecoms regulator, Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) and mobile network providers to build 15 base stations in under-served areas.
In a speech read on his behalf by the Potraz deputy director-general Alfred Marisa at the launch of a community information centre (CIC) in Chinotimba, Victoria Falls, yesterday, Potraz director-general Gift Machengete said the base stations would be constructed on a build, operate and transfer scheme.
“Potraz has also agreed with mobile network operators to fund the construction of 15 base stations in underserved areas under the build, operate and transfer arrangement,” Machengete said.
“This development should see identified areas without sufficient network coverage being catered for.”
Potraz has been opening information centres at post offices across the country to allow communities to access internet services.
In Victoria Falls, the Chinotimba CIC is one of the 146 centres established in the the public that EMA head office in Bluffhill as well as the KGVI office that houses Harare province and the Environmental Management Agency laboratory, will be temporarily closed with effect from Monday 27 July 2020 until further notice,” EMA director-general Amkela Sidange said.
EMA urged stakeholders to use its digital platforms for communication. of anonymity, one vendor in Graniteside said she was forced to dice with death so that she could feed her family.
“I come this side to buy these items so that I can sell and make money to feed my family. I’m a single parent, so buying and selling helps me to feed my little children who cannot support me financially. I am also afraid of contracting the virus, but I cannot let my children starve. I’m trying by all means to wear my mask most of the time, especially when I’m in a crowded place,” she said.
Munashe Katsande from Mbare said he goes around selling hats and shoes to survive the harsh economic conditions.
“I think the pandemic is real and I’m also afraid of contracting the coronavirus, but I cannot sit at home without food and money. Selling is what I do for a living and my family needs to be looked after. If I stay at home, who will bring food to the table? I have never benefited from the food that the government gives to people, so I have to come here and look for money,” he said.
Mnangagwa on Tuesday imposed a dusk to dawn curfew and ordered all non-working sections of the population to stay at home.
He said only registered small to medium enterprises and food markets would be allowed to operate.
Despite this, unregistered SMEs and informal traders are going about their business. In Gweru, they are operating under closed doors.
Car wash operators, saloons, mobile phone accessories dealers, vendors and money changers all devised ways to beat the strict regulations imposed as they handpick clients from the streets and secretly take them to their premises to ward off security forces. country’s 10 provinces.
“The establishment of community information centres alone will not address all the ICT needs of our communities,” Machengete said.
“Potraz is working hard to ensure that there is adequate mobile network courage in all wards in Zimbabwe.
“The Universal Services Fund, whose objective is to provide universal access to quality postal and telecommunications services to all Zimbabwean citizens, is funding the establishment of cellular base stations that will be shared by all operators throughout the country.”
Speaking at the same event, ICT minister Jenfan Muswere said government had identified ICTs as one of the pillars for economic development.
“Community information centres play an enabling role in our quest to provide access to ICTs to the citizenry, especially those in remote and underserved areas of the country,” he said.
“As a ministry, we have a mandate to ensure that all Zimbabweans have access to ICTs and basic ICT literacy, regardless of their social or economic standing, or their geographical location.”
Muswere handed computers to several schools in Victoria Falls donated by Potraz.
HEALTH workers in Zimbabwe bear the brunt of savage politics and are victimised for providing professional services to victims of political violence and demanding better working conditions, United Kingdom-based health practitioner and MDC Alliance member Sandra Kudenga has said.
Kudenga, who left Zimbabwe in 2002 after alleged victimisation by the late former President Robert Mugabe’s regime, told NewsDay that many health professionals, among them doctors, nurses and psychotherapists, had remained silent victims of polarised politics, whose needs were neglected.
Health workers are currently on strike demanding salaries in the United States dollar, better working conditions and personal protective wear.
“The many ‘crimes’ that lead to the victimisation of health workers include demanding that enough resources be availed to effectively discharge their duties or for protesting the obscene disparity between a peace time Defence ministry budget and a Health ministry grappling with an HIV and Aids epidemic and a plethora of other neglected tropical diseases,” she said.
“Zimbabwe’s institutionalised violence has spared no one. Health professionals have been managing the trauma and are being victimised for some of their efforts to ensure that everyone enjoys better health in the process.”
Added Kudenga: “It is sad how the healthcare workers who have cared for the victims of the protracted war of liberation, the Gukurahundi massacres, the abductions and tortures that accompanied every opinion that was
AS more women continue to die from backyard abortions, traditional leaders including chiefs have been roped into discussions to find a lasting solution which include the possible amendment of the 1977 Termination of Pregnancy Act.
Zimbabwe is among countries with high maternal mortality rates at 462 per 100 000 live births and illegal abortions contribute about a third of that figure.
On Tuesday, stakeholders met with the Chief’s Council and senators to deliberate the emotive subject which is taboo in communities despite many women and young girls dying from illegal abortions.
Dubbed “Breaking the silence”, the dialogue is running under a programme called SAFE engage (Strengthening Evidence-Based Policy to Expand Access to Safe Abortion).
The project aims to expand access to safe and legal abortion in multiple countries by providing decision-makers with the latest data on unsafe abortion and its consequences.
Speaking at the meeting, Chief Fortune Charumbira said the 1977 law was obsolete.
“This law was crafted by the former colonialists and so we deserve an opportunity to look at it,” he said.
Under the Act, abortion is only permissible under specific cases including rape, incest or where the mother is in mortal danger, but stakeholders have been agitating for widening of the Termination of Pregnancy Act to include other circumstances.
Charumbira, however, said as custodians of culture, the chiefs would need time to digest the issues being raised before making any decisions.
“We will go back and consult elders back in the villages. To the drivers deemed divergent, the violence that was attendant to the land seizures, and the brutal suppression of opposition voices over the past decades have been victimised.”
Last year, President Emmerson Mnangagwa threatened to track human rights doctors and lawyers who attended to and assisted the #ShutDownZimbabwe protests victims.
“If you look at 2008, nurses across the country, particularly in Zanu PF strongholds including Mashonaland Central and Mashonaland East, were targeted for attending to ‘wrong’ victims of political abuse,” Kudenga said.
“If such a celebrated paediatric surgeon like Dr Bothwell Mbuwayesango, one of the only three in the country and one who led the all-Zimbabwean team of doctors that separated cojoined twins in 2014 in an eight-hour operation, could be victimised in October last year through suspension without pay on allegations of inciting a job action by junior hospital doctors on the pretext of incapacitation supposedly under the second republic, then no one is safe.”
Kudenga said health practitioners should be allowed to air their grievances without fear of abduction, arrest or victimisation, and cited former Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association leader Peter Magombeyi’s abduction and torture.
“The bravery health professionals are beginning to show in telling the truth should never be allowed to die, but needs nurturing to ensure that the truth of Zimbabwe’s troubled past is healed through a multi-sectoral approach in which health is a major factor,” she said.
Thirteen nurses at Sally Mugabe Hospital of this initiative, there is need for wider consultation and more research,” he said.
Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health chairperson Ruth Labode said the majority of women not covered by the Act would still seek services elsewhere no matter the dangers involved.
She said Zimbabwean women were crossing over to neighbouring countries like Zambia, South Africa and Mozambique, where abortion was legal.
“In Zimbabwe, abortion is legal only for the rich who can come up with US$100 which is required at some private facilities. So the poor woman is the one who goes for the backyard abortion and bleeds to death,” she said.
Labode challenged stakeholders to be objective and consider what women were going through especially during the COVID-19 period.
“Access to contraceptives is difficult
and others at Mutare General Hospital were recently arrested and either fined or taken to court for protesting, while their colleagues at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals face ejection from staff quarters.
Community Working Group on Health executive director Itai Rusike on Friday said there was need to protect health professionals against intimidation in the course of their duties.
“The government should protect health professionals from political intimidation of any sort and ensure that health facilities constitute safe zones, where political intimidation cannot take place and where citizens can access available health services regardless of political affiliation,” he said.
“Political intimidation and victimisation against health practitioners while giving professional services to some political victims is unacceptable and legal action should be taken against it to restore confidence of health workers. The government should ensure that any victim of political violence is afforded normal and reasonable access to emergency medical services.
“The government should take decisive legal action against any person obstructing a citizen access to emergency medical services or interfering in the delivery of that emergency service.”
Added Rusike: “The Minister of Health and Child Care should make it clear within the health system and publicly that intimidation and victimisation at health services to health workers is unacceptable. The State is responsible for ensuring rights to life and access to health services, and thus the protection of health workers and clients seeking healthcare.” and the products are not there anyway. So what should women do under the circumstances?” Labode queried.
Of concern also for the stakeholders was the cost of post-abortion care.
While abortion is not open for all, post-abortion care is granted to any woman in need despite the circumstances.
Labode, however, said it was expensive.
“The woman will need surgery, maybe two or so pints of blood, antibiotics, qualified personnel. All this will deplete resources which we badly need in our facilities,” she said.
Women Action Group director Edinah Masiyiwa said they had decided to rope in chiefs and senators for guidance and input.
“Many women continue to die from illegal abortions. It is an issue we should start talking about as a country,” she said.