Harare, (New Ziana) – The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) has hailed President Emmerson Mnangagwa for visiting Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals and Sally Mugabe Central Hospital on a familiarization tour, saying this could help solve critical challenges faced by the health sector.
The visits, which came amid mounting concerns over the country’s deteriorating healthcare system, were described by ZADHR as a “vital step toward understanding the realities on the ground.”
In a statement, ZADHR said President Mnangagwa’s tour offered a rare opportunity for the nation’s top leadership to directly witness the challenges facing Zimbabwe’s public health facilities—challenges that include crumbling infrastructure, critical shortages of drugs and consumables, and a deeply demoralised health workforce.
“The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) wishes to thank President Emmerson Mnangagwa on his recent visit to Parirenyatwa and Sally Mugabe Hospitals in Harare.
ZADHR believes that the visit provided President Mnangagwa with an opportunity to appreciate, first-hand, the state of public health services delivery system in Zimbabwe, which is generally plagued by dilapidated infrastructure, shortages of drugs and consumables and demoralised human resources,” said ZADHR.
While acknowledging the President’s gesture, the association took the opportunity to call for concrete action and urged the Head of State to immediately institute a Commission of Inquiry into the country’s health sector, with a specific mandate to evaluate the government’s performance in fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide healthcare.
“The Commission of Inquiry should be mandated to enquire into the situation of health service provision by Government and its agencies with a view to ensuring service delivery that responds to the obligations created by the Constitution, which under section 76 guarantees the right to health care,” said the association.
It identified several key areas it believes such an inquiry must interrogate, for example, Health Financing Mechanisms, including current structures, challenges, and emerging opportunities, the Abuja Declaration Commitments with special focus on Zimbabwe’s adherence or lack thereof to the 2001 pledge by African Union countries to allocate at least 15 percent of their national budgets to health as well as Utilisation of Health-Specific Taxes – particularly how funds from levies like the “sugar tax” have been used since their inception.
The association also recommended that the Government should look into Public Hospital Realities – an assessment of staffing levels versus required establishment, the state of infrastructure, and the remuneration and retention of medical personnel.
The call comes at a time when Zimbabwe’s health sector is struggling under the weight of economic challenges, mass emigration of health professionals, and chronic under-funding.
Hospitals routinely face drug stock-outs, patients are asked to provide their own basic medical supplies, and doctors and nurses continue to protest low wages and poor working conditions.
ZADHR emphasized that the Commission of Inquiry must be inclusive, transparent, and consultative, engaging health professionals, community members, and civil society. Most crucially, ordinary citizens must be given a platform to share their experiences within the public healthcare system.
New Ziana
