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Moral compass


Zimbabwe News letter
October 03, 2009

Its hot and purple in Zimbabwe: Jacaranda trees adorned in purple flowers; skies heavy with purple rain clouds, bougainvillea creepers ablaze with carpets of purple blooms and Mulberry trees dripping with sweet, sticky, staining berries. Overhead the flycatchers are back, the long russet tails of the males flicking through the trees as they chase their mates. Underfoot, emerging from the ash of a million fires that have again devastated so much habitat, the wild flowers are on defiant display: yellow heads, violet gentians, orange pimpernels and exquisite salmon pink gladioli.

Zimbabwe needs this beauty more than ever now to soften the ugliness of what's going on around us. Tragically its not just political and economic ugliness we're dealing with, its a basic loss of compassion and empathy that seems to have engulfed us as a nation. We've lost our moral compass, someone said this week and how true that is.

Recently asked to assist in finding help for people in need I heard stories that are cause for deep shame. A doctor described being ushered into a small dark house in a high density township where he examined a 43 year old woman. The patient, Mrs M, has no regular income and is dependant on donations made by scattered relatives. The doctor easily diagnosed a large cauliflower growth as advanced breast cancer. He was amazed Mrs M had not sought help before and felt despair as he heard how she had tried and failed, again and again, to get help. Referred to a government hospital 6 months earlier when her problem began, Mrs M's first attendance yielded nothing because the nurses and doctors were on strike. Weeks later she tried again and was referred to the Chitungwiza Hospital in Harare where she was seen by a junior doctor and given a date to return to see the surgeon on duty. More struggle and begging for help to get bus fares for another trip to Harare. On the specified date the surgeon ordered a chest X ray and some blood tests and told Mrs M to return with her results. To her dismay Mrs M found she had to pay cash for the tests but she had nothing left. The hospital would not waive the fees and so again she returned home without having been helped. On her third attempt and with money for transport, X rays and blood tests, Mrs M returned to Chitungwiza but the surgeon did not arrive to conduct his clinic and so she was sent back home again.

The doctor said that when he saw Mrs.M.again recently her tumour has doubled in size and she was in considerable pain. Deep down, he said, he knows Mrs M has missed all chance of a cure but hopes for some compassion, empathy and palliative care.

Such anguish for the price of an X ray, the cost of a blood test or just the hand of compassion - our poor Zimbabwe.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

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