A private hospital in Zimbabwe has offered to pay for the treatment of a Zimbabwean patient who went to South Africa for surgery and was rebuked by an official in a rant that was recorded and went viral.
The woman, who could not be seen in the video, had been in a car accident in Zimbabwe, but went to a government hospital in the South African province of Limpopo for treatment – to the annoyance of the provincial health minister who blamed foreign nationals for the country’s ailing healthcare system.
Leaning over the patient’s bed, Dr Phophi Ramathuba said that Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa did not contribute to South Africa’s health budget, and that her country’s health system was not a “charity”.
Now Arundel Hospital in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare – which on Twitter said it followed a philanthropic policy of offering “free medical assistance to individuals from all walks of life”, has said it will settle all outstanding bills for the woman – though it has yet to find her.
“Our efforts to locate the Zimbabwean patient are still ongoing and we are grateful for the leads that we have received so far,” the hospital said in a tweet.
It added that it was “not soliciting donations” despite “generous offers of donations from well-wishers”.
But not everyone is impressed by the gesture, with one Twitter use likening it to a cover-up of the government’s failures, urging the hospital to “stop aiding bad governance”.
BBC
