By Fanuel Chinowaita
HARARE, Sept 5, 2025 — Parliament was sharply divided this week after Hon. Ropafadzo Makumire moved a motion urging Government to declare Zimbabwe’s ailing public health system a national state of emergency.
Makumire said the constitutional right to health was being undermined by countrywide shortages of medicines, equipment and staff, and pressed for an emergency programme to restock facilities, fix critical equipment and retain health workers, alongside the release of outstanding budget allocations.
Backing the motion, Hon. Lynette Karenyi said the crisis persisted despite Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth, arguing the problem was “prioritisation, not resources.”
She highlighted unsafe maternity conditions and said nurses at Sakubva District Hospital had delivered more than 4,400 babies since January under strain. Karenyi urged funding for family planning, citing WHO findings that investment can cut maternal deaths by up to 30%, and called for affordable chronic medicines for pensioners.
Karenyi also described dire conditions in rural facilities—patients told to bring gloves and basic drugs, erratic water and electricity forcing mothers to deliver by candlelight, a shortage of ambulances and broken diagnostic equipment—and endorsed solar systems for maternity waiting homes.
She appealed for theatre upgrades at Harare Hospital and noted MPs can help through CDF investments, citing the construction of Chiramba Clinic in her previous term.
ZANU PF Chief Whip Hon. Pupurai Togarepi dismissed the motion as alarmist, insisting hospitals are operating and that Government is renovating and building facilities.
Other legislators urged practical steps, including expanding solar power at clinics and moving closer to the 15% Abuja health funding benchmark.