Maravi

(ANTONIA JUHASZ) Zimbabwe's Health Crisis

COMMENT - This is a letter Antonia Juhasz sent to the New York Times back in 2004, in response to their refusal to list the real reason for the state of Zimbabwe's healthcare system in 2004. A complete article addressing what happened here: The Tragic Tale of the IMF in Zimbabwe, by Antonia Juhasz, on March 7th, 2004.

Zimbabwe's Health Crisis
by Antonia Juhasz, The New York Times
February 15th, 2004

To the Editor:

You expose the devastating condition of Zimbabwe's health care system (front page, Feb. 5), but with one glaring flaw: you offer no apparent cause, and therefore no solution.

According to the International Monetary Fund itself, spending per head on health care in Zimbabwe fell by a third from 1990 to 1996 when an I.M.F.-imposed structural adjustment program was introduced.

Unicef reported that in just three years under the program, the quality of health services had declined by 30 percent; twice as many women were dying in childbirth in Harare hospitals; and fewer people were visiting clinics and hospitals because they could not afford user fees.

Such structural adjustment programs require nations to drastically cut budgets — particularly in social services — and to increase fees on impoverished users as conditions of receipt of loans or reductions in debt.

Zimbabwe's health care crisis is no mystery. The mystery is that the solution — canceling its debts, canceling all I.M.F. (and World Bank) conditions on spending priorities, and channeling the necessary funds from the international community directly into health care — has not happened sooner and in more countries.

ANTONIA JUHASZ

Project Director, International Forum on Globalization

San Francisco, Feb. 5, 2004

Labels: HEALTHCARE, IMF, SAP, ZIMBABWE

posted by MrK @ 4:51 PM