By Dr Masimba Mavaza| The story is not that Tsvangirai now is being treated abroad. The real and tragic story is why do presidents choose to be treated abroad?
The opposition leader Mr M Tsvangirai was rushed to South Africa for treatment. His ailment has not been made public and talking about it in MDC is a sign of insubordination. The good reason given for abandoning his country is that Mugabe does that as well. Is Mugabe Tsvangirai’s role model. The opposition embarrasses itself by confessing that they will do exactly what Mugabe does. Yet they scream loudly that Mugabe is being treated abroad.
The idea of having people treated away from their homes is not only knee-shaking but makes all wonder if its a clear message that our own health system is broken. In Britain it is a scandal for the queen and the prime minister to use cars which are not British made. But their children go in different schools from those of the common man But we are not UK.
In Zambia Michael Sata.
Since he assumed power in 2011, his health degenerated. His illness dates back to 2008 when he collapsed and had to be evacuated to South Africa’s Milpark Hospital.
Concerns about his health were met with vehement denials, laced with accusations of treason. Of alarm was the manner in which Sata was being carted around to South Africa, India, United Kingdom and Israel – in secret – disguised as official trips, when he was so evidently unwell. There was never a day he was treated in Zambia. Ironical the same President Sata lambasted other presidents for being treated abroad.
Zambian Vice-President Guy Scott, then vice president, told Parliament that Sata was ‘entirely normal.’ Even when the president, looking and sounding frail, Zambians were shocked to learn the next day that he had been flown to attend the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York.
That was his last flight alive. The government controlled media was peppered with statements saying “the opposition leaders questioning the health of President Sata are malicious” when it became evident that the public could no longer be pacified with platitudes and the belligerent on line media were keeping close tabs on Sata. His office the issued a terse statement (for the first time) that he travelled to the UK to seek medical treatment, where he subsequently died on October 28. No cause of death, just an announcement that Zambia was again without a president. This is exactly the situation in MDC where we are not told what ailment has bothered Mr T. Obviously Mugabe did not tell him so he wont tell any one. Is this the contender to the throne. Is this a policy we must adopt?
The irony is that while in the opposition, it is normal to be treated abroad. In 2009 Tsvangirai who was the prime minister had to be rushed to Botswana for treatment after an accident. So how many things will be done by the opposition in the name of Mugabe?
Like Sata, before him, Mwanawasa suffered poor health and was also secretly and periodically flown out to South Africa and the UK for treatment. Sata said at the time, that the nation “was entitled to daily medical bulletins on the state of its President”, because the well-being of the president was a national issue. In other instances Sata said the lack of information on the president’s sickness affected the entire country.
Mwanawasa suffered a stroke and was hospitalised in France (where he subsequently died).
Zambia now has the dubious distinction of having two sitting presidents suffer ill health in silence and finally, die abroad. This fact is the same with Zimbabwe where two presidents of different parties choose foreign care ahead of theirs.
It is an indictment on Zimbabwean leaders who refuse or neglect to provide good healthcare for their citizens, while they speedily travel abroad to seek appropriate treatment, leaving their electorate to suffer the almost non-existent health care provisions.
Zimbabwe has a crumbling health infrastructure. Out of about 2 000 health posts there are only three tertiary health institutions that should ordinarily provide high level medical care, but these face constant shortages of staff, essential drugs, long waiting lists for basic surgical procedures and overcrowding in the wards. In spite of repeated campaign promises by successive ministers to improve the health sector, the situation has deteriorated.
Of course Zimbabwe and Zambia are not the only countries to have woken up to learn that their president has been admitted in a foreign hospital. President Zuma of South Africa gets his health bill in Russia while Khama gets his treatment in UK. The grass always looks greener in the other pan.
Of Ethiopian leader and Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, initially, there was little said about his illness, but later it was revealed that he had died in a hospital in Brussels, Belgium at age 57, while undergoing treatment.
In January 2013 President Malam Bacai Sqnhq of Guinea Bissau died in a Paris hospital. He had been flown to France, after taking ill with suspected diabetes in November of 2011.
Then there was the fiasco after death of Nigeria’s Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2010. After many absences for treatment abroad, he was finally flown to Saudi Arabia on November 23 2009, having been diagnosed with “Acute Pericarditis”, (an inflammatory condition of the coverings of the heart). His return to Nigeria was shrouded in secrecy until his death. The Palestinian Yassa Arafat was treated in France where he passed on.
In all these instances, it has been the same: countries with poor health infrastructures, secrecy around the health of leaders – who even on their sick bed refuse to acknowledge the illness and choosing the best medical treatment that money can buy for themselves leaving their citizens to the vagaries of a poor health system.
As Zimbabwe heads towards polls scheduled to be held in 2018 these are things that will be on our minds: the leaders’ lies and obfuscation on the subject of their health- the fact that their monies were spent on secret health missions to destinations they themselves are not able to access in their individual capacities.
The public’s trust in such leaders has been undermined and to some degree, the country’s political security has been endangered. Should the MDC not win the upcoming election, it will be no one’s fault but their own. – [email protected]