By A Correspondent- Former Zanu-PF youth leader Jim Kunaka has had to endure a painful week-long mourning for his late son as health authorities are demanding his coronavirus Covid-19 test result before they can bury him.

Kunaka blamed health authorities at Wilkins and Parirenyatwa hospitals for taking too long to give him the results of Covid-19 tests they did on his 12-year-old son who died on Sunday last week.

“When he passed on at Park Town Hospital we called Nyaradzo funeral services and they took the body to the parlour. They later took it to Harare Hospital for Covid-19 tests on Tuesday and we were told that the results would be out after 48 hours. However, up to now (Saturday) the results have not been released. We were also told that a forensic post-mortem is supposed to be done.

“On Friday the doctor demanded Covid-19 tests but nobody knows where the blood samples they took are. I was made to shuttle between Wilkins Hospital and Parirenyatwa trying to locate the samples but there was nothing. I was shocked at the level of unprofessionalism by the people there. How could blood samples disappear without trace?”

The former leader of Chipangano, a Zanu-PF vigilante group from Mbare, said he now has to wait for another week to have another test done.

“You can imagine how frustrating it is that I have to wait for the doctor who does the forensic post-mortem because he comes once a week.

“I have to wait again for the Covid test. In this difficult economic environment it is expensive to run a funeral for two weeks. It is also painful as a parent to be unable to bury my son for this long. I think we need to respect the dead. It is really unfair, he lamented.”

Kunaka said his son, who lived with his grandmother in Chitungwiza, complained of a severe headache last Saturday before they took him to Parktown hospital in Harare where he died.
“While I would like to also know the cause of my son’s death, the time the tests have taken has really frustrated me. I am beginning to suspect that something fishy is going on.

“I don’t know what they are doing with the blood samples they took. I don’t know if I am supposed to be following them when they do their job so that I collect the results as soon as they finish before they lose them again,” he added.

-DailyNews