Mugabe should issue a statement on doctors-MP says

Non-constituency Member of Parliament Priscillah Misihairabwi-Mushonga says President Robert Mugabe should issue a statement on what the government is doing to do about doctors who are demanding that patients on medical aid will have to pay cash upfront from 1 July.

She said the issue was now beyond the Minister of Health and required the entire cabinet and President Robert Mugabe in particular.

“I hear my colleagues who are saying we need to get the Minister of Health to come here.  However, for me, we need to get at the highest level of government, somebody who is calling for an urgent cabinet meeting and looking at how this can be resolved,” she said in her contribution to the debate on the demand by members of the Zimbabwe Medical Association who have issued an ultimatum to start charging cash to patients on medical aid from 1 July because medical aid societies owe them $200 million.

“We cannot have another extra 24 hours coming through.  We have road accidents happening and for some reasons, 15 to 16 people are dying at the same time and others are being taken to hospital.  Can you imagine that you have a crisis and somebody is being taken to hospital whilst someone stands up there and saying, ‘I cannot treat you because as far as I am concerned, yes you have a medical aid but you cannot be treated.’

“If this was happening in some countries, we would be having not a Ministerial Statement but a Presidential Statement.  We had people being killed in Orlando and immediately, we were having the State House issuing a statement. 

“The President needs to step up and say this is what is going to happen tomorrow.  I am not interested in the Minister of Health anymore.  The fact that we have gone this far without a statement being issued by him, speaks a lot about what he is doing.  What is the President saying in this particular instance?”

Misihairabwi-Mushonga said the problem was probably that Zimbabweans were so used to suffering that when something happened they just looked and watched.

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