Hospital tells sick: nominate a funeral director or go away

A BUSY hospital in Zimbabwe is asking its patients to select their funeral directors – before they are admitted.

In a shocking reflection of the dire state of Zimbabwe's healthcare system, Thorngrove Hospital in Bulawayo is turning away patients who refuse to pick a parlour before treatment.

A mother whose daughter was admitted with measles last month said: "One of the conditions for my daughter to be admitted was that we should indicate which funeral parlour to call when she dies.

"I was shocked because I sent her to the hospital so that she gets life," said Siphathisiwe Nyathi, 35. Ms Nyathi's daughter, Sithabiso, –a year six primary-school pupil – later died, according to a report in the state-owned Chronicle newspaper this week. "Her death has confused me," said Mrs Nyathi.

"I don't know whether she got adequate medical care or not."

Another mother said: "They told me my daughter would be sent home if I didn't make a choice. I was terrified because it had not dawned on me she could die," said mother Earthlen Munyeza.

Fortunately, daughter Monalisa survived the measles attack.

A nationwide outbreak of measles has seen patients flocking to hospitals such as local authority run Thorngrove. Bulawayo residents claim that poorly paid nurses are receiving kickbacks from funeral parlours if they find business for them.

Ms Munyeza said she gave nurses at Thorngrove the name of a prominent local funeral director "but the nurses said I should choose another parlour because (her choice] was expensive".

Bulawayo's director of Health Services, Zanele Hwalima, said: "I am aware this has been a practice for all patients admitted to Thorngrove Hospital for many years.

"This certainly does not mean that they are all going to die in hospital and you can attest that some patients are discharged home."

A decade-long political and economic crisis played havoc with Zimbabwe's once-enviable health delivery system, as simple drugs like paracetamol were in short supply. Lifts broke, corpses were carried up and down stairs wrapped in tattered sheets and hospital mortuaries went without electricity for hours.

In rural hospitals expectant mothers were told to bring buckets of water with them ready for delivery. Doctors left en masse, fed up with salaries that could barely stretch to a loaf of bread per day.

When cholera broke out in late 2008 some patients were treated with drips strung from tree branches. Four thousand died in the epidemic.

The formation in February 2009 of a power-sharing government between Robert Mugabe and former opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has seen the situation in hospitals gradually improve.

But more cases this year of cholera, as well as typhoid and measles, show Zimbabwe's health care system is still tightly stretched. At least 200 have died of measles since last December. There have been 3,585 recorded infections, most in children.

The outbreak began in eastern Manicaland province, among the white-robed members of an Apostolic church sect that considers taking children for vaccination or treatment a "sin". Authorities are now considering legislation to force parents to take their children for immunisation.