Problems In Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe: Hospital Owed Over US$6 Million

HARARE Central Hospital is battling to recover US$6,4 million from patients that supplied false contact details to the authorities and received treatment on credit.

The institution's chief executive officer, Dr George Vera, yesterday said most debtors were nowhere to be found and the debts were likely to be written off.

Dr Vera said people were in the habit of signing acknowledgement of debt forms using wrong addresses and other contact numbers to evade paying the debts.

"Currently, such patients owe us at least US$6,4 million. They come here stranded and because we are human enough, we treat them and ask them to sign acknowledgement of debt.

"They provide us with false information to make sure we do not get paid. They supply wrong residential addresses, wrong next of kin and wrong telephone numbers.

"We have problems in collecting that money. Debt collection is very expensive. We send drivers using our own fuel, only to be informed that the debtor does or never stayed at that house.

"In February the debt was US$5 million and it is increasing considering that people are now aware that they can dupe the hospital staff and get free treatment," he said.

Dr Vera said the institution was experiencing very serious cash-flow problems, which were now compromising the hospital standards.

"We are having serious cash-flow problems and our operations are being hampered. Imagine if the US$6,4 million is collected, this institution would improve and meet the expected standards," said Dr Vera.

Of the 1 200 pregnant women who deliver every month at the hospital, only 200 pay up their bills while the rest disappear without paying.

Although Dr Vera confirmed that health was a fundamental human right accessible to all, he said operating for free was not sustainable in Zimbabwe.

"We understand and accept that health is a fundamental right and that is why we treat people on credit. Now that they choose not to pay, we are now confused on what we should do.

"We do not know what to do, we simply treat them. This is because we know that the consequences of not treating somebody is death, hence we cannot just watch people dying," he said.

The hospital has been spending at least US$5 000 monthly on sending reminders to people who do not pay.

Meanwhile, the institution's maternity ward has come under fire for allegedly unlawfully detaining women after giving birth for non-payment of maternity bills.

Thinking Anglicans: problems in Zimbabwe for Anglicans

Sixteen church-goers have been arrested and priests have been turned out of their homes in Zimbabwe’s Diocese of Harare – where the Anglican Church is facing persecution at the hands of an ex-communicated bishop.

The Rt Revd Chad Gandiya, Bishop of Harare, said the arrests were illegal and that those detained – including a elderly woman – were traumatised.

The diocese is now trying to arrange bail and has asked for prayers for those in prison and their families.

Bishop Chad, a Regional Manager until 2010, said: ‘I am really concerned about this. We shall be running around to try and bail the whole group out today, if the police will listen.’

The Anglican Church in Harare is under attack from an ex-communicated bishop, Dr Norbert Kunonga, a supporter of President Mugabe, who left the Anglican Province of Central Africa (CPCA) in 2007 to try and set up a rival church.

Kunonga, with the support of police and henchmen, has seized

…But it is leaders of the Anglican Church, one of the country’s major denominations, who have lately faced the most sustained pressure. Nolbert Kunonga, an excommunicated Anglican bishop and staunch Mugabe ally, has escalated a drive to control thousands of Anglican churches, schools and properties across Zimbabwe and southern Africa.

“The throne is here,” declared Mr. Kunonga, who has held onto his bishopric here in the sprawling diocese of Harare through courts widely seen as partisan to Mr. Mugabe. He has also been backed by a police force answerable to the president, whom Mr. Kunonga describes as “an angel.”

Chad Gandiya, who was selected by the Anglican hierarchy in central Africa to replace Mr. Kunonga as bishop of Harare, said he was baffled by the support for Mr. Kunonga from state security services since the church that Bishop Gandiya leads is apolitical: “It’s not Kunonga we find at the church gates, it’s the police. It’s not Kunonga who drives us out, who throws tear gas at us, it’s the police. When we ask them why, they say they’re following orders.”

Is it not time that the Anglican Communion Office issued an official statement - to The Church and to the world - to the effect that 'Bishop' Kunonga is no longer a credible Bishop of The Anglican Church of Zimbabwe.

This statement of the fact, accompanied by the litany of his indiscretions, should be one of the ways in which Anglicans can show their disapproval of the activities of both Kunonga and his despotic Presidential Minder, Robert Mugabe.

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