Nurses at Chiredzi General Hospital are reportedly stealing
birth control pills from the health institution and selling them for as much as
$4 a satchet on the black market.
Chiredzi General Hospital superintendent, David Tarumbwa
who is doubling as the acting district medical officer (DMO), admitted
receiving the tip-off through an anonymous letter sent to him.
He said he had since forwarded the names of the suspects to
the police. “Yes, I have received the letter and I had to seek the help
of the police, but I am still waiting for feedback. I know such things are
happening behind the scenes because I have
received several such complaints,” he said.
“You know maternal health is offered for free, but there
are some elements that are ripping off innocent women just for personal gains
and tarnishing the name of the hospital in the
process.
“I am sure they are manipulating the system or using
non-existent patients’ names to falsify the number of those who received the
contraceptive. I would like to urge women to report these nurses to the police
because what they are doing is illegal,” said Tarumbwa.
Ministry of Health and Child Care spokesperson Donald
Mujiri said he could not respond as he was driving, promising that he would do
so later.
One woman who spoke on condition of anonymity said the
nurses would frustrate them when they go for their free monthly supply of the
contraceptives, forcing them to buy from the black
market.
“They tell you to buy a pregnancy test kit for them to be
sure that you are not pregnant,” said the patient.
“This happens every month, forcing us to go to buy the
pills on the streets or in the backyard shops, because we cannot afford the
pregnancy test kits. In any case it is cheaper and
hustle free to buy the pills from the black market than
buying the pregnancy test kit.”
According to the factsheet compiled by the Ministry of
Health and Child Care, in partnership with the University of Zimbabwe College
of Health Sciences Clinical Trials Research Centre
and Guttmacher Institute, most women who have an abortion
do so because they become pregnant when they do not intend to.
In 2016, about 40% of the pregnancies in Zimbabwe were
unintended and one quarter of those intended pregnancies ended in abortion.
Commercial sex workers in Chiredzi recently told the Parliamentary Portfolio
Committee on Health, Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary
Affairs and Women Affairs Portfolio Committee that although they don’t know the
number of pregnancies terminated and the number of those who died in the
process; they use unorthodox abortion methods like shoving fresh chillies up
their private parts or using hooked wires.
She also accused nurses at Chiredzi General Hospital and
doctors from private institutions of carrying out most of the unlawful
abortions.
Zimbabwe is among countries that have the highest rate of
modern contraceptive use in sub-Saharan Africa, likely due to its robust family
planning programme. Newsday
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