Harare (AFP)

Latex gloves as urinary catheter, operating rooms at a standstill due to lack of lighting, patients forced to pay for fuel from their ambulance: once rented for its efficiency, Zimbabwe's health system is dying and its users with.

The irony has not escaped Dr. Edgar Munatsi. An absolute master of the country for thirty-seven years, his former president Robert Mugabe preferred to be treated for years in a luxury hospital in Singapore until his death last Friday at the age of 95.

"It's very symbolic," said the emergency doctor at the Chitungwiza hospital, about 30 kilometers from the capital Harare. "He could not trust our health system, which says everything about his state of disrepair."

Like Robert Mugabe, other dignitaries have made the choice of medical exile. The current Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, for example, hospitalized for several weeks in China.

And for good reason.

At the Chitungwiza hospital, which is said to offer "quality health", according to its glowing entrance panel, operations are regularly postponed or canceled due to lack of anesthetics, says Dr. Munatsi.

The situation is equally disturbing in the pediatric ward at Harare Central Hospital, one of the country's main institutions.

The cleaning is done twice a week, for lack of staff and detergents, confide doctors. Surgical procedures are also often reported for lack of running water and nurses.

"In operating rooms, we have sheets full of blood and feces and we can not wash them," said an indignant doctor who requested anonymity. Like many of his colleagues, he fears the retaliation of President Emmerson Mnangagwa's regime.

- Deadly cocktail -

Only one of the three pediatric operating rooms is operational. "We have a four-year waiting list for inguinal hernias, the most common pathology in children," says one of the specialists.

Lack of medication, obsolete equipment and lack of staff: the cocktail is sometimes fatal. "It breaks my heart when you lose patients who should not die under normal circumstances," says Dr. Munatsi.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the public health system has been steadily deteriorating, whereas before, one came to be treated in Zimbabwe, recalls a senior doctor.

Inheritance of the Mugabe years, the endless economic crisis in which the country has struggled for twenty years, with its train of three-digit inflation (175% in June), devaluations and shortages of commodities, precipitated the plummet .

In hospitals, patients and their loved ones experience the daily situation, taken aback.

"It's pathetic," sighs Saratiel Marandani, a 49-year-old street vendor, "I had to buy the catheter dressing for my mother."

Given her age, she should receive free care. But the reality is quite different, says his son, bitter. "Only the consultations are free (...) if you need paracetamol, you must buy it yourself".

Her mother will have to do without the ultrasound she needs to diagnose her case. At 1,000 Zimbabwean dollars (a hundred euros), "it's out of my reach," said Saratiel Marandani.

- 'Clutches' -

Doctors say they sometimes have to pay out of pocket for their patients' medication, or simply a bus ticket so that they can go home.

At Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare, Lindiwe Banda is prostrate on her bed. This frail thirty-year-old diabetic was given the green light to go home. On condition of paying his bill.

"But I do not even have 5 Zimbabwean dollars (0.5 euros) to pay for the transport," she murmurs in tears. "I can not reach my relatives, I think they abandoned me (...) They have no money but they should at least show love ..."

Hospitals and patients are penniless, doctors too. They have just begun an umpteenth social movement.

With a salary that has lost 15 times its value in the space of a few months and the "price spike", we are "unable" to go to work, says one of them, Peter Magombeyi.

His salary is only 115 euros a month, so he is forced to do odd jobs to get by.

"We are very aware" of the problems, says Prosper Chonzi, the director of health services in Harare. "The health system reflects the economy of the country," he says, fatalistic.

President Mnangagwa has announced the release of an extraordinary $ 600,000 budget extension for five hospitals. "Cloisters", react in chorus two doctors.

Under these conditions, it is the bleeding of the brains. Out of 55 comrades of promotion, count one of them, "there are only six to still practice in the country".

© 2019 AFP