Never trivialize, politicize a national crisis

BY MOSES MATENGA

Zimbabwe is facing multiple, overlapping challenges and allowing a health crisis to add on to the mounting pressure can be disastrous.

While the US-Israel aggression against Iran continues thousands of kilometres from Harare, its economic aftershocks have arrived in Zimbabwe.

They have arrived in the form of rising fuel prices and pockets of strikes by the nurses with doctors and other civil servants threatening to join in.

With the rise of fuel due to the Middle East crisis, public transport has gone up, rentals likely to go up and basic commodities likely to take the same upward trend.

But how a distant war reaches Zimbabwe’s doorstep?

Research shows that the Israel–Iran conflict has disrupted global energy markets and maritime trade. Oil and refined-fuel prices spiked after major strikes on Iranian facilities and retaliatory actions reduced available crude and raised insurance costs for ships transiting crucial routes. Global Brent crude rose from roughly US$70/barrel in early 2025 to peaks above US$120/barrel during intense periods of the conflict; shipping insurance premiums in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden also surged, diverting some cargo to longer, more expensive routes. Those international shifts feed through quickly to import-dependent economies like Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe imports most of its refined fuel and many medical supplies. Higher international fuel prices translate into steeper domestic pump prices and larger transport and logistics costs for hospitals and suppliers. In 2025 Zimbabwe’s official fuel price increased by around 40–60% compared with the previous year (depending on product and supply source), while monthly headline inflation climbed into double digits, squeezing real incomes. For workers paid in local currency or on fixed-dollar wages that have not kept pace with inflation, this is a direct loss of purchasing power.

This is not abstract. Nurses’ real incomes have fallen sharply. A typical public-sector nurse receiving the reported US$240 monthly basic wage in early 2026 finds that amount stretched far thinner than two years ago.

For staff who must travel shifts across the city, the additional daily transport burden can consume a significant share of take-home pay.

Finding truth in humour, the sorry state of the health sector

The nurses are raising critical points and though hilarious, the messaging on the placards they held last week and this week speaks to the severe crisis they are going through.

Some of the placards read: ‘Mberi neshure kuhurira rent, hubaba hwese hwaa, tirimarombe manyama…kuhurira mari kombi.”

The placards told a sad reality of how tough life is among the men and women doing all they can to keep our sick friends and enemies alike alive.

They have been doing for the longest of time and working under difficult conditions.

There are no adequate medicines in hospitals, not enough machinery also leaving them hopeless.

There have been reports also of nurses now resorting to corruption to survive. Some are selling medication which is meant to be for free to patients while others are just going to work to do personal business.

Finance Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube conceded that the government is aware of the day-to-day pressures affecting nurses and the rest of the civil servants.

He said job evaluation exercises conducted last year by the Public Service Commission are now set for implementation.

Presidential spokesperson George Charamba also said the government is acting on the civil servants issue and this April, there will be some exciting news.

The announcement also comes as nurses at Parirenyatwa and Sally Mugabe Hospitals have downed tools, saying basic needs have become too expensive and salaries no longer stretch.

One of the nurses told our radio division that given what they go through as nurses, it is affecting them psychologically.

A nurse and midwife at Parirenyatwa, Maidei Dzinoreva, lays bare the human cost of the strike, describing the crushing psychological toll of trying to live on just US$240 plus a portion in ZiG while facing relentless daily pressures.

She says the weight is becoming unbearable, as nurses battle to care for patients while quietly breaking under the strain themselves.

Others feel their workplace is a traumatic zone where they go to look haplessly at dying patients whose lives could have been saved if the resources were adequate.

When the nurses at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals took their grievances to the Health Services Commission, they were asked to present them in writing.

This is as if the Health Services Commission doesn’t the challenges nurses are facing.

Maybe they don’t know what is going on the health sector and maybe the powers that be also do not know the status quo.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday demanded regular updates from the Minister of Health and Child Care, Douglas Mombeshora.

This, the President said will help his government to address the myriad of challenges the sector is faced with.

The President said the ministry must “put pressure” to ensure resources are found and no hospital is left behind in terms of what is needed.

This is an interesting challenge from the country’s highest authority and the ministry must keep up the pressure without fear.

Nurses demands are very fair and legitimate

The demands by the nurses are far from being unfair. They are feasible and reasonable, no doubt there can be met.

At the center is pay, with nurses saying they are “earning peanuts” as the cost of living bites. They are demanding a transport allowance, warning that getting to work has become a daily struggle and rejecting Public Services Commission buses they say don’t match their shifts.

The nurses also want free medical care at public hospitals, arguing they can no longer afford to pay for treatment themselves.

Housing allowances are an issue to them too as they can no longer afford paying huge amounts in their rented accommodation.

In short, the nurses are living like paupers and the government can’t continue to watch haplessly as this continues. There is need for a solution that is lasting.

The strike actions at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, Harare Hospital, Sally Mugabe Hospital, and Masvingo Hospital are not merely theatrical protests. They reflect workers confronting a real collapse in living standards. Placards and testimony capture the daily reality: nurses describe trying to live on a reported US$240 monthly salary while transport, rent, and food costs have all risen dramatically.

Government response – commitments and gaps

Government officials have publicly acknowledged the pressures. Finance Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube has said the administration understands the day-to-day strains on nurses and other civil servants and pointed to job-evaluation exercises for implementation. Presidential spokesperson George Charamba promised “exciting news” in April and President Emmerson Mnangagwa has demanded regular updates from the Minister of Health and Child Care, Douglas Mombeshora, urging the ministry to “put pressure” to ensure resources are found.

These statements are a start, but concrete, timely action is required. Promises of future announcements do not address immediate staff shortages, nor do they reverse the damage from months of eroded wages and recurring stock-outs. The Health Services Commission’s request that nurses present grievances in writing — while procedurally reasonable — smacks of bureaucratic delay when staff are facing daily hardships.

A closing appeal: don’t politicise human suffering

The nurses’ grievances are not a partisan issue; they are a national emergency. Political actors should not trivialise or weaponise this crisis. Zimbabwe cannot afford to have its health system further politicised at a time when rising global fuel and shipping costs — transmitted through an unstable international energy market — are already pushing workers and patients to the brink.

If the government acts quickly, transparently, and with targeted measures that acknowledge both the fiscal constraints and the immediate human needs, it can stabilise the sector and protect lives. Failure to do so risks turning a manageable crisis into a long-term collapse of essential health services — an outcome none of us should accept.