BMJ  2008;336:98 (12 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39450.635579.0F

Views & Reviews

Zimbabwe: an eyewitness account

Kate Adams, general practitioner in Hackney, London, and a trustee of Zimbabwe Health Training Support

kateadams@doctors.org.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Personal View

No soap in a hospital? Can you believe it? But this is Zimbabwe, a country whose public health system was once the envy of neighbouring countries and that now has the lowest life expectancy in the world: 34 for women and 37 for men. This statistic continues to shock and disturb me; Zimbabwe is, after all, not a country at war.

Of course, HIV has had a great impact. But it is mainly the policies pursued by Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party that has moved Zimbabwe, once the bread basket of this part of Africa, to a basket case.

In late October 2007 I spent 10 days in Zimbabwe. I am a trustee of a charity, Zimbabwe Health Training Support, whose aim is to support the training of health professionals and medical students in Zimbabwe. During my stay I ran workshops on medical ethics for junior doctors and . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Zimbabwe’s health system is now in a state of collapse
Kate Adams
BMJ 2008 337: a2637. [Extract] [Full Text]

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Healthcare in Crisis
Karim M Mahawish
bmj.com, 17 Jan 2008 [Full text]
Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ