HARARE – When Agnes Katif couldn’t receive treatment for breast cancer at Harare’s main public hospital, she checked into one of the many self-styled herbal clinics that have opened across Zimbabwe’s capital.
In an interview at the center, where he spent about a month, Khatif claimed, “I was in a moving grave, but now I’m feeling better.”
“I don’t want to go to the hospital again because I was heartbroken that they didn’t prescribe me a single pill,” the 67-year-old told AFP.
Unlicensed, unregulated and unproven, herbalists are in high demand among Zimbabweans frustrated by a public health system in ruins.
Parirenyatwa, the country’s largest public hospital, has not had a mammography machine in operation for 15 years.
However, there is only one radiotherapy cancer treatment machine currently in operation that is available to the general public in a country of about 17 million people.
“We recognize that one machine is not enough,” said Parirenyatwa’s head of oncology, Notando Mtizira.
“But we manage to provide radiotherapy services with this one machine.”
Like other public hospitals struggling with Zimbabwe’s deep-rooted economic crisis, Parirenyatwa Hospital is running out of medicines, equipment and even staff as doctors and nurses leave for better pay and conditions overseas.
(AFP/Jekesai Nijikizana)
Some hospitals are collecting donations of medicine and essential items such as gloves and syringes.
“Drugs don’t exist,” said Simbarashe James Tafilenyika, president of the Zimbabwe Municipal Nurses’ Alliance trade union.
Even if a hospital had the equipment, regular power outages would render the machines inoperable, he said.
Public hospitals are losing staff to the growing private sector, to countries like the UK where qualified nurses can earn more as carers, or to closer, less affluent regions.
“Some are moving to South Africa, some are moving to Zambia, and some are actually moving to Mozambique,” Tafilenyika said.
Parirenyatwa’s hallways are crowded with patients and their families milling about under cracked ceilings and across peeling paint walls. The waiting list is long.
Those who can afford it travel to neighboring South Africa for treatment. Others go to herbalists.
Lovemore Maklilofa of the Zimbabwe Cancer Society said there were misconceptions about the benefits of herbs and the risks of hospital treatment.
“Many people are afraid of both the disease and its treatment and avoid chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery,” he says.
Upstart herbal clinics that use loudspeakers to advertise their businesses on street corners are causing problems for hospitals.
“When we ask patients why it took them so long to see them, they usually say they have been using herbal medicine for quite some time,” says Mutizira.
“When patients finally come in, they have stage 3 or stage 4 cancers, which are more difficult to treat, more expensive, and have much worse outcomes,” she said. spoke.
The herbalist who runs the Harare center where Ms Khativuh sought treatment for breast cancer is confident in her abilities.
“I can treat any type of cancer,” said Never Chilimo, 66.
He claimed that herbs could also help diagnose cancer.
But he wants to work more closely with hospitals.
“What I would like to see is an open dialogue with doctors. Many cancer patients prefer herbal medicine to traditional medicine, so ultimately we need to work together.”
Another of his patients, Wilfred Manatsa, 58, said he spent $25,000 at a private hospital to treat prostate cancer and Kaposi’s sarcoma.
Surgery would have cost another $7,000, but he couldn’t afford it. He put his trust in Herb.
“I have stopped taking prescribed medications and now rely only on herbs,” Manatsa said. –AFP
