Patients ‘happy’ with Zimbabwean hospitals, Minister tells parliament
By Staff Reporter
Patients being treated in Zimbabwe’s public hospitals are “happy” with the service, a minister has said, as comments by his youth empowerment colleague Tinoda Machakaire on the country’s dire health delivery system spilled into parliament Wednesday, igniting heated debate in the house.
Chivi MP Felix Maburuse asked Health and Child Care deputy minister Sleiman Timios Kwidini to update the House on steps taken by government to improve the country’s health delivery system.
Maburutse said “social media is portraying a negative picture of the status of our healthcare”.
In his response, Kwidini dismissed social media comments about the ministry’s omissions, saying “as the Ministry, we are doing wonders since 2018, to make sure the citizens receive quality care.”
“What we are doing is only known by the patients, not the social media participants. As we speak right now Mr. Speaker Sir, our citizens are very happy with the service delivery that we are giving.”
Kwidini was interjected by Kuwadzana East MP Chalton Hwende who asked him to “concentrate on responding not denigrating citizens on social media”.
Hwende said social media was not the only platform in which concerns have been raised over the country’s health delivery system but parliament itself has done the same.
In his response, Kwidini said apart from social media “no actual person has come to the Ministry to complain directly to the Minister”.
He said his ministry has, “from the first 100 days of the first quarter of 2025, we managed to change some hospital equipment in the sixty-three districts; that is x-ray machine, theatre beds and so forth”.
“We are working on other equipment which will be installed in the shortest period,” he said.
The minister said “visitors, not the beneficiaries of the treatment like the patients” were “attacking” his ministry.
“I can assure you Hon. Speaker, that if people move around and ask the patients themselves who are receiving treatment, they are very happy with the service which they are receiving,” Kwidini said.
Marondera central MP Caston Matewu told the minister that “social media is born out of our citizens who have lived experiences, including us as well”.
“We know what is in these hospitals,” he said.
Speaker Jacob Mudenda joined in, in defence of the minister, telling MPs that “If the source is from media, print or whatever and is not verifiable, that cannot be regarded as a source of information.”
Hwende said the source was not actually social media but a government minister, Machakaire. But Mudenda still argued saying the youth empowerment minister “did not validate those statements. That is how I read it.”
Mbizo MP Corban Madzivanyika joined in saying it was inappropriate for the Speaker to dismiss social media as a non-credible channel of official communication citing that government was also now using social media to communicate official messages.
“The Minister of Youth raised this issue of problems in the hospitals on his Twitter account and the Minister of Health and Child Care used the Twitter account to respond.
Mudenda stood his ground saying, “Even then, that is not verifiable.”
The speaker ended the debate by saying this could be resolved by bringing both Machakaire and the Minister of Health to parliament “and then I can interrogate them to make their statements accordingly”.
“To me, that would be a verifiable source because they will be there in person,” he said.
