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Villagers Battle to Access Health Services

Pregnant women in Gwanda cover up to 50 kilometres to access Masase hospital arguing that it is well equipped compared to their local West Nicholson clinic.


Access to health care is a basic constitutional right. In parts of rural Gwanda, villagers are battling to access health care services due to lengthy distances between their homesteads and the clinics.

BY MELODY MPANDE | @The_CBNews | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | FEB 20, 2023


GWANDA (The Citizen Bulletin) — 32-year-old pregnant Ruvimbo Mpala is left with no choice but to cover up to 50 kilometres on foot to access maternal health services at a hospital located in Mberengwa, Midlands.
 
Using public transport from her Ward 23 village of Dwala in Gwanda, Matabeleland South to Masase hospital in Mberengwa attracts a US$6 fare, a figure Mpala says is expensive.
 
“It is costly to use public transport,” says Mpala.
 
Ward 23 also comprises other villages such as Mashura, Shebon, West Nicholson, Johnsly, Tshabezi and Dryhoock which all rely on Masase Hospital and West Nicholson Clinic for health care services.
 
“Even if it is furthest, Masase is preferred because it's well equipped compared to West Nicholson,” says Ward 23 Councillor, Mthokozisi Tshuma.
 
“The stress becomes even worse when you get to West Nicholson and be referred to Gwanda or Beitbridge,” says Tshuma.


The country’s constitution, Chapter Four, clearly stipulates that every citizen and permanent resident has the right to have access to basic health-care services, including reproductive health-care services.


It says that the state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within the limits of the resources available to it, to achieve the progressive realisation of the rights set out in this section.

However, contrary to this, most people in Ward 23 in rural Gwanda have been struggling to access health care since independence from British rule in 1980
 
A community member, Lwandle Zulu says that it is very painful that pregnant women endure so much suffering in order to access maternal care services.  

“People here are poor and fares on public transport to Masase hospital are expensive,” says Zulu.


Florence Ndlovu, a villager from Tshabezi, says adding to their woes is the poor road network in the area that makes it difficult for vehicles or ox-drawn scotch carts to navigate through to the Mberengwa hospital.


In separate interviews, villagers narrated horror stories of still-births, women delivering at home or on their way to the clinic, seriously ill people dying on their way to hospital and other chilling experiences.

Villagers who use ox-drawn scotch carts to navigate through to the Mberengwa hospital bemoan the poor state of roads connecting the two districts. Image by NewZimbabwe


“Even in death, it is very difficult to ferry the corpse on this dusty and rough earth road, which has now become even more impassable during this rainy season,” Ndlovu says.
 
Sipho Dube, a widower from Mashura village, recalls how he had to escort his heavily pregnant wife to the nearest but ill-equipped health facility, West Nicholson Clinic for a medical check-up.
 
“It's a pity that without money for transport, one has to trek to these ill-equipped facilities,” he says.
 
Dube says from the long walk, his wife started bleeding before they could reach to the clinic.
 
When they got to the clinic, his wife's condition got worse as her placenta was covering the cervix, Dube narrates.
 
“Unfortunately, she was transferred to Gwanda Provincial Hospital, 40km away for an operation. It was too late for them to save her life and that of my unborn child, so they both did not make it,” says Dube.


The World Health Organization once declared that the Zimbabwean healthcare system was among the best in the developing world. However, indications are that most of the gains after independence have been reversed.


Currently, Zimbabwe has one of the highest maternal mortality rates and pregnant women have to gamble with their lives by opting for home births due to underfunded and under-resourced government hospitals or they cannot afford private health care.

Councillor Tshuma says economic challenges have left pregnant women in the area with limited choices.


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He says even in cases where women might have wanted to give birth in health facilities, they were unable to do so because of poverty.
 
“The key challenge with respect to maternal deaths is actually referrals, our roads are not very good, so sometimes when these women are referred, they are delayed in arrival at the hospitals to get treatment,” Tshuma adds.
 
“Having a close-by health facility would lessen the burden of preventable deaths we are registering here,” says Tshuma.


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