Who Between Chiwenga And The Health System Needs To “Urgently Stabilise” The Other?
5 August 2020
Spread the love
Ailing Constantino Chiwenga

Vice President Constantino Chiwenga has, with immediate effect, been appointed the new Minister of Health and Child Care by President Mnangagwa

VP Chiwenga takes over from Dr Obadiah Moyo who was sacked last month for inappropriate conduct.

In a statement yesterday, Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Dr Misheck Sibanda said in appointing VP Chiwenga, President Mnangagwa noted the urgency needed to stabilise the health delivery system in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic where the country has registered an acute surge of cases.

The 63-year-old former army general has for the last two years been sporadically disappearing from the public eye on medical grounds.

Chiwenga as recently as a few weeks back was rushed to China for magical attention.

George Charamba, the spokesman for the presidency, said: “I can confirm that the vice president left for China for his medical check-up. Obviously, we can’t say how long that will take because that will depend on what experts say. But he is out of the country.”

He has since returned into the country.

Chiwenga spent the greater part of last year in hospitals in South Africa, India and China, where he received treatment for more than six months.

He told friends when he returned home in December that he had been treated for esophageal stricture, the abnormal narrowing of the esophagus which causes patients difficulties in swallowing and leads to dramatic weight loss.

Before his latest trip, he had returned to China at least once since December for what Charamba described as a “routine medical check-up”. The latest flight, however, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic whose epicentre is China, would suggest that Chiwenga has a medical emergency that could not wait.