‘Private sector stabilising heath sector’

TRAUMA Centre chief executive Viveki Solanki (pictured) says the private sector is playing a key role in stabilising the country’s teetering health sector.

Solanki made the remarks at the 2023 Zimbabwe Community Trailblazers Awards (ZCTA) held on Friday in the capital.

“We said the government cannot do this alone. The private sector has to step up. We have helped the government in many sectors,” Solanki said.

“Government has helped me first by giving me a special economic zone status when I was building my hospital and that has helped us to expand the hospital and provide almost all facilities that are available in the Western world in Harare, Zimbabwe.

“Today, maternity cases, gynae cases, keyhole surgery, complicated neurosurgical cases, orthopaedic cases, complicated medical conditions, and the latest of course we put in the cat lab so when you have a heart attack you no longer have to fly to South Africa to be treated and saved. It’s all available in Zimbabwe at the Trauma Centre.”

The country’s health sector has endured years of underfunding and a debilitating brain drain amid a crippling shortage of basic medicines and drugs at public hospitals.

“I think we need to hold each other’s hands because nobody else will. We do not have the financial infrastructure to support the health sector so we need to have each other and those of us who have the ability have to step up and move on,” said Solanki, who won the Distinguished Health Champion gong at the ZCTA.

He bemoaned the mass exodus of health workers to foreign lands in search of greener pastures and its impact on the health delivery system in the country.

Meanwhile, Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) reporters, Vanessa Gonye and Melody Chikono were, respectively, recognised as the Outstanding Innovation Health Reporter of the Year and Business Reporter of the Year during the awards ceremony.

AMH’s Jeffrey Milanzi won the Outstanding Designer of the Year award.-newsday