WATCH: MP calls for Zimbabwe health minister to be summoned to parly after Dr Phophi’s video

Zimbabwe’s opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) Member of Parliament, Tendai Biti, has been lauded for calling on the country’s Minister of Health and Child Care Constantino Chiwenga to be summoned to parliament to explain the country’s public hospitals.

Biti made the request on Thursday after visiting a relative in hospital.

“I rise on a matter of national importance, which is the conditions in the public hospitals. I was at Parirenyatwa hospital recently. My grandfather is not feeling well, he has got cancer,” said Biti.

“They are forcing you to buy even syringe, bandages and painkillers. The public health system in Zimbabwe has collapsed.

“Yesterday we heard from Honourable Mathebu that they’re having to take citizens bitten by dogs to Mozambique to get treated for rabies. It’s a national crisis. There are no dialysis machines, there are no basic equipment in our hospitals.

ALSO READ: ‘I stand by my words’: Limpopo Health MEC says SADC countries must pay for their citizens

“And only yesterday in South Africa, we were treated to a video clip of the MEC, the provincial minister for health in the Limpopo province Dr Phophi Ramathuba chiding Zimbabweans that ‘we are treating you, what is wrong with the health system in your country?’

“So we ask that the minister of health be summoned to this august House to present a status of our health and how the government is going to deal with this urgent issue.”

Biti has been lauded by Zimbabweans and South Africans alike, for challenging the Zimbabwean government to improve the public healthcare system.

Ramathuba continues to make headline following a video in which she “explains” to a foreign national patient why she should pay for the medical procedure she had just received at a public hospital.

She has been critised by some, with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) calling for her removal.

‘We refuse to jump on the anti-Phophi Ramathuba bandwagon’

However, others, including the Patriotic Alliance (PA) have supported her.

“There are very few countries, if any, where a foreign national with no legal documentation can expect to receive the same level of healthcare treatment as a citizen of that country. Those who have joined the bandwagon of outrage against Limpopo MEC of health Phophi Ramathuba appear to think South Africa must be the exception,” said the PA in a statement.

ALSO READ: Limpopo Health MEC: Ramaphosa asked to protect Ramathuba after rant at patient

“It is a simple fact that illegal immigrants are placing all services of government under enormous strain. They are far from the only problem besetting our country, but to try to downplay the scale of the problem is something that seems only to be done by those among us privileged enough to afford medical aid and private healthcare.

“Those same angry writers of press statements in the ranks of the DA and EFF should first try competing with illegal immigrants for access to government services and entry-level jobs before they complain about an MEC who has simply had the courage to say something that is obvious to the majority of our citizens.”