Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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Parirenyatwa Hospital in the capital, Harare, is a national referral medical center that is usually bustling with activity. These days it is strangely quiet and almost deserted as only emergency cases are being attended to. Other patients are becoming desperate.
Sixty-seven-year-old Violet Chimbiro, who has colon cancer, left the hospital disappointed and in pain. The medication she needs has run out in public hospitals. She was told she would have to buy the drugs herself but that is not so easy.
Private health facilities are demanding payments in foreign currency, especially US dollars, which is hard to access for ordinary people. Pharmacists are refusing to accept the local bond notes which in the last three months have lost value. For Violet Chimbiro, this means she is not getting the medication she needs.
"I have been given a prescription to go and buy drugs. But chemists want payment in US dollars which I don't have. My children can't help me because they don't earn US dollars. The prescriptions are just piling up. I just keep them as I do not have the money," she told DW.
Doctors' strike exacerbates health sector crisis in Zimbabwe | DW | 02.01.2019
That's called forcing a country to "dollarize".
Sixty-seven-year-old Violet Chimbiro, who has colon cancer, left the hospital disappointed and in pain. The medication she needs has run out in public hospitals. She was told she would have to buy the drugs herself but that is not so easy.
Private health facilities are demanding payments in foreign currency, especially US dollars, which is hard to access for ordinary people. Pharmacists are refusing to accept the local bond notes which in the last three months have lost value. For Violet Chimbiro, this means she is not getting the medication she needs.
"I have been given a prescription to go and buy drugs. But chemists want payment in US dollars which I don't have. My children can't help me because they don't earn US dollars. The prescriptions are just piling up. I just keep them as I do not have the money," she told DW.
Doctors' strike exacerbates health sector crisis in Zimbabwe | DW | 02.01.2019
That's called forcing a country to "dollarize".
