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Zimbabwe doctors' advice: Don't get sick
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| Contributor | the wanderer |
| Last Edited | the wanderer Aug 31, 2008 02:50pm |
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| Category | Idiocy |
| Media | Website - Yahoo News |
| News Date | Sunday, August 31, 2008 08:50:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | HARARE, Zimbabwe - The advice of doctors to Zimbabweans is, don't get sick. If you do, don't count on hospitals — they're short of drugs and functioning equipment.
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As the economy collapses, the laboratory at a main 1,000-bed hospital has virtually shut down. X-ray materials, injectable antibiotics and anticonvulsants have run out.
Emergency resuscitation equipment is out of action. Patients needing casts for broken bones need to bring their own plaster. In a country with one of the world's worst AIDS epidemics, medical staff lack protective gloves.
Health authorities blame the drying up of foreign aid under Western sanctions imposed to end political and human rights abuses under President Robert Mugabe. A power-sharing agreement aimed at bringing the opposition into the government could open the gates to foreign aid. But negotiations have stalled over how much power rests with Mugabe.
Meanwhile, the economic meltdown is evident in empty store shelves, long lines at gas stations — and hospitals where elevators don't work and patients are carried to upper wards in makeshift hammocks of torn sheets and blankets. |
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