Mail and Guardian
By Jason Moyo
17 September 2010
Two years ago Harare Central Hospital was virtually shut down. Its large wards stood empty, wind sweeping through broken windows and paint peeling off the walls.
Doctors and nurses, living on worthless pay and distraught at having to watch patients die from a lack of basic drugs and equipment, stayed away. But this week, just as the unity government marked two years since its formation, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai visited the hospital as it reopened its theatres and a new renal unit.
The theatres and ICU have been re-equipped and the collapsed plumbing system has been repaired. But each of the five-hour sessions patients need twice a week on the new dialysis machines costs US$200, much more than a government salary — evidence of how real change remains distant for ordinary people.
“Very good things are happening in this country. The pattern at Harare hospital is being replicated throughout the country,” Health Minister Henry Madzorera said. But he needs US$700-million for the hospitals, which is unlikely to come from donors. Much like Zimbabwe itself, the hospital is limping forward, taking what little change comes its way, two years after the unity agreement that brought so much hope.
Many believed the pact would bring rapid economic recovery, driven by a flood of foreign aid and investment. But political reform has been slow, the coalition remains shaky and now talk of elections is raising worries about fresh violence and a reversal of the small improvements recorded.
An election poll commissioned by Zimbabwean daily paper NewsDay and conducted by the Public Mass Opinion Institute in August found that Tsvangirai’s MDC-T would win the next general election, with President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF second and the revived Zapu a distant third. But in a sample of 1 062 people, the survey found that 40% of the electorate might not vote.
Whether it will be out of fear or apathy, it is clear that for many, hope has given way to a quiet contentment with just getting by. Last year schools were reopened as teachers returned to work after a year of boycotting class, raising hopes that the country’s education system would recover.
But Education Minister David Coltart said schools remain desperately short of books. And power utility Zesa warned that power cuts — already a regular occurrence — would worsen in the next three months. The company is owed more than US$400-million in unpaid bills. Corruption remains a concern, with officials from Tsvangirai’s own party joining the looting of state resources.
A recent report revealed how senior officials in MDC-run urban councils — now barely able to provide basic services — approved for themselves monthly salaries as high as US$15 000. With expectations of a quick improvement in wages and living standards fading, frustration is growing.
A strike by pilots which grounded national airline Air Zimbabwe last week was a sign of “simmering unrest”, the country’s main labour federation said, and expectations of foreign investment are waning. For some just stopping the freefall is cause for celebration. “We are working,” Alfred Mukosi, head of surgery at Harare hospital, told Tsvangirai.