Patients Starve As Food Stocks Dry Up At Zimbabwe Government Hospital

Patients admitted at Kwekwe General Hospital are starving as the health facility is reportedly failing to provide food to its inmates on a daily basis.

This was revealed by Kwekwe General Hospital medical superintendent Dr Patricia Mapanda during a drought relief meeting held at the District Administrator’s office in the Midlands town.

Mapanda said patients at the government health institution would sometimes go for 2 to 3 days without food adding that the situation has been compounded by the imminent drought confronting the troubled Southern African country.

She called for immediate government intervention while saying the worst hit inmates were those from the rural areas.

“We are seeking for immediate intervention from government institutions such as The Grain Marketing Board (GMB), Social Welfare and Agritex.

“More food relief programmes are needed for the hospital to be able to cater for our inmates,” she said.

Mapanda said the situation has been complicated by government’s failure to supply food to the hospital.

“We used to get help from GMB and Agritex previously for our patients at the institution but that has ceased this year,” she added.

Worst hit by the situation, she said, are patients from rural settlements whose relatives are too poor to provide them with supplementary foods.

“We receive various inmates who are coming from different communities some of which are hunger stricken such that they are failing even to get a meal for a day from their relatives,” she said.

“Most of these inmates who are failing to get food while under medical attention in our hospital are coming from the rural communities of Kwekwe were hunger has visited most of the families because of the drought situation.”

Mapanda also called for assistance from the corporate world.

“We are appealing to the District Administrator to urge the business community to sympathise with us… ” she said.