Rachel wept as they buried her 6 year old daughter. Who would have known that going to school would mean death for her bright eyed child? Who knew that she would come home barely able to walk, continuous diarrhoea a deadly torrent down her legs. They buried her frail body wrapped in a plastic bag thrust into a cheap coffin, purchased by the dozen by the do-gooder aid agencies. That day they buried 30 men and women. Was it supposed to be consolation that 600 women, men and children had also lost their lives to this plague? Rachel only knew that her child, flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood was gone.

Rachel wept when she buried her sister. When Leah’s husband left to look for work in South Africa, Leah was joyful. Maybe the poverty that had dogged their family since the factory closed would now be a thing of the past. Maybe now their three children could go to school and go to bed at night with a full belly. Leah waited and waited for the money to come. The money did not come. She heard that he was living with another woman in Johannesburg. Then one day he appeared in the gloom of twilight. You could see the jut of his collar bones through the thin shirt he was wearing. He did not look like the man who had left home back in 1999 when the troubles in the country really started. He lived on and on for two more years. And Leah looked after him. He was still her husband after all. She sold all their meagre possessions to get him the medicines that he needed. Still he died. All Leah had left was poverty. And AIDS. Rachel thinks it is the hopelessness and despair that finally got Leah. Who wouldn’t despair if they were forced to stand at the street corner, selling their body in order to feed three hungry mouths? Now Rachel weeps when she looks at her nieces. What future for them female, poor and orphaned? She wonders and worries; are they also destined for the streets?

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We have a serious problem with our health delivery system in Zimbabwe. It has stopped delivering health. It has been delivering death. Between February 08 and August 08, 120 people have died as a result of cholera. Everyone acknowledges that this is a direct result of the breakdown in the system. The latest evidence of the breakdown is that most major hospitals have stopped admitting patients. This is because of a combined shortage of medicines, other medical supplies and staff to administer these. This disaster has been presided over by David Parirenyatwa. He is a medical doctor. I am strong proponent of people taking responsibility for their actions or omissions. I have been doing some digging in relation to the ethical responsibilities of doctors. I would guess that most if not all of them take some form of oath when starting their practice. My assumption is that  David Parirenyatwa at some point in his life took an oath pledging the following or at least a variation of the following:

• To consecrate his life in the service of humanity

• To practice his profession with conscience and dignity, with the health of his patient being his first consideration

• To maintain by all means his power, the honor and noble traditions of the medical profession

• Not to permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics or social standing to intervene between his duty and his patient

• To maintain the utmost respect for human life from time of conception, even under threat

The Minister of Health has been at the helm of the Ministry for a number of years now. During this time, the health system has declined to the point where today, hospitals are turning away patients or have become dens of death.  To make it worse we now hear allegations that some US$7.3 million from the Global Fund meant for HIV and AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and other communicable diseases has been misappropriated by the Reserve Bank. I know definitely that presiding over a crumbling health delivery system is not in the service of humanity.

The oath exhorts medical doctors not to permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics or social standing to intervene between his duty and his patient. Has the Minister not violated all that? Health in Zimbabwe is now a preserve of the rich. That is permitting social standing to come between the doctor and his patient. ZANU PF and its faithful have worked to amass wealth and power at the expense of the sick. Their direct policies and actions have led to the collapse of the system and the flight enmasse of doctors, nurses and lab scientists. During the recent elections, those wounded and requiring medical attention were denied it on the grounds of suspected party affiliation. Now has the good doctor not allowed party politics to come between him and his patients?

Now given that he has been in ZANU PF for a while, l find l cannot say what his conscience is telling him about the state of hospitals and the many deaths recorded and unrecorded in this country as a result of the collapse of the health system. I am not sure what his conscience has been telling him about the misappropriation of Global Fund money meant for the vulnerable of this country. I’m sure if he had been practicing his profession in good conscience and with dignity, he would have resigned from office before now. The honour and noble traditions of his profession demand no less.

Just for interest sake, is the Minister a member of the World Medical Association? Their website tells me that “Active members or employees of organisations and organisations which undermine the basic human rights with their intentions or in their practical activity cannot be members of the WORLD MEDICAL ASSOCIATION”

A domestic worker earns who earns the equivalent of USD10.00 per month was paid by her employer Z$100,000,000,000.00 (100 trillion dollars at the parallel market rate).

With October’s cash withdrawal limit of $50,000.00 per day she would need to go to the bank 2,000,000 times (that’s two million days) in order to access all her salary.

With the current withdrawal limit of $500,000.00 per day she will have to go to the bank 200,000 times (that’s two hundred thousand days).

We do not have that many days in a year.

Now we all know that Mumbengegwi and his Prime Minister Gono (aka Governor of the Central Bank of Zimbabwe) have failed. But what l want to know from Hon Tendai Biti, who is the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Secretary for Finance and Economics, is this, what do you think about this situation and in the first 100 days in office, what will you do to change this? I really would like to know what concrete plans the MDC has to get us out of this mess as they go for the weekend talks in South Africa.

And please, enough of touting the “unlocking donor funding” spiel.

This is just ridiculous.

Seeking the shadow minister for health from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Mr Minister, 120 people have died from cholera in Zimbabwe in the period between February and August 2008. They were not beaten to death at some party base, but l would still call theirs death from political violence.

In February, l am told, Parirenyatwa Hospital stopped all surgical operations because the hospital had run out of theatre supplies. Now this and other hospitals in the country including Harare Central and Chitungwiza have stopped all admissions because there are no drugs and there is no staff. I already know that the present Minister has failed. If you are the alternative, what have you been doing about disaster that is our health delivery system? Do you have a plan for solving these problems, say in the first 100 days of office? How about letting us know some of those plans so that we know you are capable of solving this emergency? In the meantime, how about saying something about the needless loss of life as a result of cholera? How about visit Budiriro and Glen View and Glen Norah just so the people know whose side you are on? Or does the MDC only talk to the people at election time?

The account by Beatrice Tonhodzayi of the experiences of an HIV positive man raises a lot of issues which l feel should be discussed more than is done in the diary. I will start by saying upfront that in this critique l am taking a woman centred approach to the issues raised. In particular, I have always been concerned that in a lot of the discourse around infection within a marital relationship, there seems to be an inordinate amount of emphasis on people not seeking to blame their sexual partners, rather being exhorted to “just accept the result and move on”.

I am worried that Tamuka does seem to have grasped the full significance of his actions and certainly does not seem prepared to take full responsibility for his actions while he was married. He seems puzzled that his wife will not talk to him as she believes he is responsible for infecting her with HIV. One does not get the sense that he understands what the HIV positive diagnosis means for her. There is no indication that he has any empathy for his wife. He has not put himself in her shoes and sought to understand from her perspective what it must feel like dealing with this diagnosis. I am sure a lot of women who are similarly infected share the same bewilderment, anger and despair as Tamuka’s wife. This is because for a long time the message was and to an extent still is, abstinence or chastity until marriage and then faithfulness to your one husband. So assuming you have honoured this blue print for avoiding infection, it has to come as a shock when you discover that despite having followed this advice as given by your mother, your aunt, your teacher, your church, your community health worker and even that NGO that is so respected, you still find yourself infected. The icing on the cake is that if this happens to you, you should just accept this diagnosis and move on, because that is the nature of the marital bed.

For me the worst but most important point in Tamuka’s account is his statement that:

“Yes, l may have cheated a few times in this marriage but nothing out of the ordinary. I am definitely not the ‘Mr. Harare’ that my wife, her friends and family are now portraying me to be. I am just a regular, ordinary man who strayed from the marital bed a few times.”

This is where the crux of the matter is, is it not? His statement exposes the sense of entitlement that a lot of men have when it comes to cheating on their spouses and other intimate partners. Tamuka believes his infidelity is acceptable as it is “nothing out of the ordinary”. After all he did it just a “few times”. So to take his argument to its logical conclusion, it is okay to cheat “just a few times”? Is that what the “ordinary man” out there believes? That they are entitled to cheat because that is what “ordinary men” do? This begs the question, just how many times do you have to be unfaithful before you run the risk of getting infected with either an STI or HIV? Does one get a merit award if they cheat a few times as opposed to a lot of times? Is there a measure for cheating, where some acts of infidelity are more acceptable than others? It is interesting that the interviewer never challenged Tamuka’s statement above.

Isn’t this part of the problem sub-Saharan Africa has with HIV infection, when you have an intersection between gender inequality and the HI Virus? The problem is we have a society that views male infidelity as a normal expression of masculinity. This finds expression in some writers regurgitating without critiquing opinions that men allegedly express that they set up “small houses” because they will be dissatisfied with their wives at home. I will argue that a lot of men who cheat, do so because they can. They do it because like Tamuka, they believe that they are just being “men”. It is an expression of the patriarchal power that they have. Unfortunately in an age of HIV and AIDS, these masculinities are toxic masculinities. That single sexual encounter can result in HIV infection. You can get infected whether or not you are a “Mr Harare”. Read more

Greetings in Shona usually go something like this; “Makadii?” (How are you?) The answer usually goes; “Tiripo, kana makadiiwo?” (We are well, if you are also well). Infused in this greeting is this society’s ethos. The recognition that our destinies are intertwined. That no person is an island. That we belong to the human family. That each person has responsibilities not just to themselves, but to the community to which they belong. That you are what you are because of others. Hunhu, ubuntu.

Last night l was in my office on Selous Ave working late when something happened that is symptomatic not just of the serious decay in this country, but perhaps also of the reason why as Zimbabweans we have not risen up and done something about our mess. It was about 8:45pm and all was quiet in this area of the Avenues, when a sudden scream rang out. It was a woman screaming for help. There was terror in her voice. Although such screams are common place in the area around Selous Avenue/ Livingstone Avenue/ Third Street going towards Fourth Street, as people fall prey to the thieves and robbers who haunt the area, they are still shocking and frightening when they happen. We all ran out of the office to look out. What normally happens (and l use the word normally advisedly) is that because it is so dark, (on account of there being no street lighting), you hear the agonised screams of a person as they succumb to the thieves, long before you see them running for dear life.  You peer into the dark but you cannot see the victims until they come to a lit up area near one of the offices. And so it was that last night we heard the screams of the woman long before we saw her. She was screaming for help and it appeared to us that the thieves were still in pursuit, shouting as they went after her. So loud were her screams that she drew the attention of a number of people who were in nearby offices. People were calling out to her to run towards the light. Hearts were pounding as we waited for her to emerge from the night. We were gratified to see an armed police officer who had been checking the nearby Beverley Bank ATMs for cash, emerge and run towards the screams. And then he stopped short. The woman emerged into the lit up area, as did her accosters.  They were about three police officers who were roughing her up. She was screaming that they were hitting her as she came up to the armed police officer who was her would-be rescuer. She kept asking “why are you hitting me? Why are you hurting me? What have l done?” She was clutching her handbag to her chest and there was real terror in her voice.

As they came to the lit up area where people had gathered, the police officers pulled back a little but continued roughing the woman up, pulling and shouting at her. All this without arresting her. The would-be rescuer was at a loss as to what to do l guess, given that these were his fellow police officers. He did not ask what was going on and he just started trailing after them as the three went off, still assaulting the woman. The three of us who had been watching this tragedy just stood impotently, consumed with a mixture of guilt, fear, helplessness and despair.

The security guards went back to their posts, muttering that she was probably a prostitute. The implication being therefore that she deserved whatever abuse the police officers were subjecting her to. Other people went off, muttering and wondering what she had done. Again the implication was that she must have done something to deserve the abuse, otherwise why would the police be doing that? 

No one problematised the role of the police. No one said that even if she had broken the law, the police should have arrested her and taken her into custody, not assaulted her like criminals. There were three of them; they could have done that easily.  Even if she was a commercial sex worker, that still did not give the police the right to rough her up as they were doing.

Now, l do not know the facts of the story. I do not know what she had or had not done.  I do know however that the police take an oath of office in which they swear to uphold the laws of the country. If someone is suspected of committing an offence, he or she should be arrested and taken into custody. As far as l could tell, the woman was not resisting arrest. One is therefore left wondering why the police were behaving as they were. I have my theories as to why, but will not go into them.

The guilt we felt at not having intervened kept pulling at us long after her screams had fallen silent, we kept wondering how she was, what had happened. We questioned whether they were real police officers or they had been thieves dressed as police officers.  We wondered perhaps if they had tried to proposition her and she had rejected their advances and therefore the assault and harassment was retaliation. We wondered if perhaps they had tried to steal from the woman and were roughing her up to facilitate this. (One certainly hears enough stories in which police officers are implicated in criminal activities) They were certainly not behaving like officers of the law as they assaulted the woman. 

Our guilt arose from the fact that we had kept silent when we should have spoken out. We had stood back when we should have stepped up and stepped in. We were relieved that it was not us and we were safe. We felt sorry for the woman but that was not enough to compel us to act.  We were afraid that the lawless louts would turn on us. We were afraid perhaps of the inconvenience, so we sacrificed the woman to her doubtful fate. We were after all working late because we had to. Getting ourselves involved would have meant that we would lose valuable time getting embroiled in a messy and dangerous argument with the apparently lawless police, or so we told ourselves.  The irony is that the incident so disturbed us that we could not continue working.

Our response l think is part of the problem we have in Zimbabwe. We all know what’s wrong and what’s right but no one is willing to do what it takes for the common good. The shelves are empty, but as long as l am managing to put food on my family’s table, who cares that my neighbour’s children are going to bed hungry? As long as l can access cash through various means, who cares that someone has been spending days and nights outside the bank waiting to withdraw their paltry money. We look at them, we feel sorry, we despair but we are relieved that it is not us standing in the baking sun as we go about our business. We do not intervene. We do not speak out when we should.  As long as l is managing, it is enough. Hatisisina hunhu. We have lost our ubuntu. That which makes us members of the human family.

I hope as the Prime Minister and his two deputy prime ministers are inspecting their swanky new offices in Munhumutapa Building, they are thinking of ways of healing our community and restoring our values.