Kwidini :Lack of wisdom , Congenital amnesia polit...

Kwidini :Lack of wisdom , Congenital amnesia political grandstanding

Forward Nyanyiwa in CARLOW, Ireland and Setfree Mafukidze in ANTRIM, Northern Ireland

It would have been funny - and thrilling in a way had recent remarks in parliament - of all the places, about the state of affairs in the country’s health delivery sector had been attributed to former parliamentarian, the affable Cde Joseph Chinotimba, famed for his hilarious contributions in the August house.

Only it ceased to be funny when everyone realised that the unfortunate remarks were actually said by the deputy minister of Health and Child Care -one Honourable Sleiman Timios Kwidini, himself a guardian and officer in the country’s health sector.

The deputy minister, in a moment of madness that exposed his wisdom and laid bare his other side, finally put to rest the generation -old argument on why doctors think they are better than nurses both in academia and, or social intelligence.

The jury is out! Thanks to “sekuru” Kwidini for approaching critical issues with an open mouth and shut-mind approach.

Background is key.

Responding to a question from another honourable member in parliament a few days ago on the status of the health delivery sector in the country, Hon Kwidini had this to say: “Mr Speaker Sir, l would like to thank the honourable member for very good question of wanting to understand what is the ministry doing as the roadmap to make sure that our citizens receive quality healthcare.

“Ehh, on the part of the social media yes, it’s very true that people on social media always they talk what is not happening in the ministry but as the ministry, we are doing wonders as from 2018 to make sure the citizens receive quality care because what we are doing is only known by the patients not the social media participants.

“As we speak right now Mr Speaker Sir, our citizens are very happy with the service delivery which we are giving……the complaints are coming from social media, no actual person has come directly to complain to the minister……”

Not even a first year student nurse would have said this. Had it not been for the timely interventions from Speaker Jacob Mudenda, maybe Hon Kwidini would have rued the day he took oath of office to serve the masses of Zimbabwe.

So pathetic was his response, worse still coming from someone with institutional memory of what is obtaining in public hospitals. Honourable Kwidini is a nurse by profession and he knows too well the problems being faced by patients and health workers to provide quality healthcare.

He knows too well that there are no bandages, no latex gloves, no basic analgesia, no water, no linen and hospital beds, no surgicals, no oxygen, no working X-ray machines, no vacolitres, no wheelchairs, no betadine, no proper patients meals and no staff!

The issues bedevilling our health sector are not an imaginary creation of the social media as he wanted all to believe. The issues are real and they have been with us for a long time since the advent of the notorious illegal sanctions and subsequent collapse of the infrastructure.

It is a public secret that there are no basic equipment and hospital consumables to be used to attend to patients. Who can forget doctor Azza Mashumba’s tears back in 2019 when she sensationally broke down explaining how hospitals were ill equipped?

This promted a first of its kind meeting between doctors and His Excellency President Emmerson Mnangagwa at State House on 15 May 2019 and true to his promise from that meeting, the president delivered hospital equipments within three months.

But this with other commendable interventions that the Second Republic has done to resuscitate this asphyxiated sector does not wash or wish away the problems in our hospitals that had been brewed for many years.

The President should be applauded for taking the issues head on without sweeping them under the carpet, something Honourable Kwidini desperately tried to do.

Does the deputy minister expect patients to visit Mukwati building every morning to tell their ordeals for him to properly understand what is happening on the ground?

Isn’t it the same patients who are using social media to highlight their predicaments unless the deputy minister wants to tell us that patients have no access to social media.

Surely, can bedridden patients and grief-stricken relatives have to knock the minister’s office door every morning for these problems to gain gravity?

The deputy minister has been in the trenches long enough to understand the problems unless he has suffered infantile amnesia. Whilst his counterparts - other nurses are downing tools to register their displeasure at the chronic deterioration of services in public hospitals, the deputy minister is choosing to politically grandstand at issues that require a sober and hearty approach.

Here was an opportunity for the deputy minister to at least make a mark for himself and acknowledge the problems but sadly he reminded us what we have known over the years that this is a ceremonial post with less value and influence when it comes to the administration of this important sector.

We all know his claim to national fame is rooted in that position.

Him being thrown into government administration as a deputy minister was a first by the president and a confirmation by His Excellency that he recognise the role nurses play in the provision of public health but Hon Kwidini has apparently shut the door for other nurses who might entertain such lofty ambitions in the future.

Here was a justification from across the sector over his appointment and those who raised concerns on whether nurses can make good government leaders have been vindicated fuelling once again the doctor - nurse debate. Doctors have been getting these posts since time immemorial.

The current problems in the health delivery sector does not require political grandstanding but a robust approach to effect change and the deputy minister as a trained nurse should know better the general rule of patients advocacy than playing to the gallery.

The deputy minister should be on the forefront calling his finance ministry counterpart to meet the 2009 Abuja resolution which calles for governments to allocate 15% of their national budget towards the provision of health.

The deputy minister should have been the one to highlight what minister Tino Machakaire noted because he knows and understands the problems better and instead of firefighting telling parliamentarians of some “100-day” positives, Hon Kwidini should have rallied all and sundry to make a unified cry to the powers that be and enforce positive change.

Health knows no politics. Health is apolitical.

No one is immune to ill health and the president requires foot soldiers who will notify him of existing situations on the ground for him to intervene than cheer leaders who take critical issues for some social media gossip.