An overview of the African Healthcare Problem

The Covid pandemic has made virtual education the safest option for students and teachers sheltering at home during lockdown but the problem is, even if internet access is available, most people living in townships and rural areas in Africa do not have laptops or tablets to get online. The availability of devices is a gamechanger in education now and it can make the difference between Africa catching up with the rest of the world in education or falling behind in learning. Most organizations in the US like The World Bank Group are still working from home but some US companies like Microsoft and Twitter have realized the savings they make not renting office space while working virtually so they have decided that their employees can work from home indefinitely. Other organizations are moving away from the centers of large cities like New York and they are simply donating their equipment in order to start afresh in their new location. They are disposing of the top of the line tech equipment which is still in perfect condition. Such equipment would be invaluable to a school or hospital in Africa. Then there are opportunities with device manufacturers and retailers who cannot possibly sell all their inventory and have returned equipment that cannot be sold. Imagine if those laptops or tablets are given to nurses in Africa together with blood pressure monitors and glucometers to function as mobile clinics for the screening, prevention and treatment of patients in villages and townships in Africa? Or even give African students the same e-learning experiences as students in the West?

Opportunities for health Promotion in Africa: Donate unused medical supplies

The biggest opportunity in donated surplus equipment lies in the medical field. Donated surplus medical equipment is a growing trade such that the United Nations issued guidelines for the standards of equipment to be given to developing countries. There are even 2 accreditation bodies for the growing number of organizations dealing in donated medical equipment, Partnership for Quality Medical Donations (PQMD) and Medsurplus Alliance. To view the list of organizations that donate surplus medical equipment, click here.

I have recently set up a non-profit organization in Washington, DC Nyasha Africa, to support healthcare and education in Africa so I reached out to Medshare, which is also on this list, to find out how their donation process works. Our non-profit, Nyasha Africa, is working with doctors in Africa who will select the medical equipment needed, Medshare will fill up a container and ship it to a port in Africa, at the cost of $25,000 and if we do not return the container, we pay an extra $2,500 for the actual container. I set up a GoFundMe campaign, gf.me/u/y327s8, to try to raise money to send medical equipment to Zimbabwe so Beira would be the nearest port of shipping then we still need to raise more money to get the container from Beira to Harare Emergency Services, which would be the central distribution point. This is a trial of the concept for us because overall it will cost $27,500 to land the container in Beira then more money to get it to Harare. Normally you can send a container to Beira for about $10,000 so Medshare is adding their own $15,000 in admin costs to the shipping costs for the donated equipment. Once our nonprofit is registered with the IRS we can solicit our own tax-free donations of surplus medical equipment from manufacturers, wholesalers, hospitals and clinics. I am a trained pharmacist so I know how much consumables and small equipment is returned to wholesalers. Now with Covid, there are stringent restrictions on returning goods, even certain goods on Amazon. I tried to return disposable gloves which were too big in Amazon but they said there is no need and still gave me a refund.

Case studies of Donate Medical Supplies to Zimbabwe

As a case in point a friend of mine, Kerry Grier works in the maternity unit in a major hospital in Toronto. Hospital policy says that any supplies brought into the neonatal ICU where the premature babies are kept on ventilators cannot be returned back into their storage so they have to be thrown away, even if they are unopened. Kerry asked her colleagues to keep the unopened supplies, instead of throwing them away, and pretty soon she was known all over the hospital for collecting supplies which she shipped to hospitals in Zimbabwe. One day the head of the neonatal unit said that they were replacing the ventilators so did she want the old ones? Of course, she said yes and so began a long journey of legal approvals, fundraising for storage, and shipping the ventilators until they finally got to Zimbabwe and were installed in a hospital in Bulawayo. It was not an easy process at all and I spoke to Kerry to see what learnings I could get from her.

There are some Zimbabweans in the Diaspora who care what happens back home. On the other hand, there are a lot of Africans who are successful and comfortable in their new adopted countries that do not care what happens in Africa. I care because I still have friends and family there, and when I visit I want to be assured that there is good medical care if I need it.  Someone called me to ask me why I did not consult them before I set up a “Donate Medical Supplies” GoFundMe for Zimbabwe and my answer was that if I wait for everyone’s approval, I will never get anything done. So far not a single Zimbabwean has donated yet but they have families back home where some hospitals do not even have beds for patients to sleep on. A couple of Nigerians have donated because Nigerians have a stronger sense of community. I get it, we are in a pandemic and there are a lot of people going through hardships with a corresponding increase in the number of requests but a lot of people like to talk and complain about the situation in Africa but will not step up when asked to help. There is so much need that even with a few hundred dollars you can buy masks and PPE to donate to doctors, which is what I plan to do this December with what we raise by then. It is not all doom and gloom, however. There are so many separate initiatives for health and education by the African Diaspora; we just need to come together and support each other. For the Nyasha Africa board, Dr. Taku Tela, a chiropractor based in Maryland and Ruth Kanodereka, a traveling nurse currently fighting Covid in Texas, have joined so we are pooling our resources to see how we can have impact in Africa. After a long career in international finance, I have decided to venture into the nonprofit world to use my skills and experience to make a difference.

The United Nations set out a call to action in their Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)  for all countries and Nyasha Africa answers at least the third and fourth SDGs, which are health and education, through goal 17, partnerships with corporations and other organizations. I was so excited to discover that USAID has programs for donating equipment and reimbursing some of the shipping so I am taking a deep dive to see how we can participate in  these programs because they would bring scale to our operations. Partnerships are more important than money especially partnerships with implementers of health and education programs on the ground in Africa. Africans should come up with their own ideas to lessen the burden on foreign donors and development agencies. Most development aid fails to make an impact because it is imposed on Africa. Donating surplus equipment is a win-win for everybody because organizations in the West have a sustainable way to get rid of their surplus while Africa has a means of getting hold of equipment that would normally be expensive.

For more information about what Nyasha Africa is doing, visit our About Us here

They had been advised to look for an Off-roader vehicle. The Dr who had attended to the young man described it as an “emergency ” and an operation had to be done by Wednesday latest 2 September. West End Hospital, one of the few private hospital in Zimbabwe’s Capital City Harare wanted USD5,000 for bed and a further USD3,000 for surgeons. This was cash and in advance of USD7,000 upfront.

Parirenyatwa hospital, the biggest hospital in Zimbabwe was not admitting any patients, emergency or not in their public section. Only the private wards @ USD100 a day. Furthermore, Parirenyatwa hospital demanded a Covid-19 PCR test. It was mandatory. Not the USD20 one, but the $60 to 75 USD tests.

Private surgeons were demanding USD5000 for the operation. In addition, an Anesthetist was required, with the cheapest billing USD700 for the operation. Karanda Hospital which was recommended as the best place for the surgery required “only ” USD500 would do for the operation and was approximately 200 km away from Harare.

We left Harare approximately 3pm for Karanda, about 200km from Harare. There was massive traffic jam by the toll gate. We arrived at Karanda just before 6pm after crossing a bridge less river were we had to check which way other cars used to cross. It’s clear during the rainy season, this bridge is impassable.

There were hundreds of cars parked outside the hospital. Cars were full of people, with blankets, water containers and the like. Clothes just laundered were scattered all over the Bush trees surrounding the hospital.

We were not allowed inside the hospital yard. We dropped off our sick patient by the gate. A Doctor was called, who indicated that he would be by the wards as they had left.

We were hit with bad news after the Dr assessed the patient and said take him to Parirenyatwa. We explained that Pari was not admitting any patients. Dr explained that intestinal obstruction is a complicated operation which required surgeons. Karanda had no surgeons.

Karanda charges “only” USD8 per day. Our patient was detained overnight as he needed 4 pints of Drip. He was severely dehydrated.

The following morning, we started hunting for surgeons back in Harare. I remember vividly one surgeon asking how much we have in USD. We said we had only 600. He said it’s a nonstarter, at least if we had USD2500 upfront he could operate on a payment plan.

We called at least 6 surgeons who all were hoovering between 4000 and 5000 USD.

We hit luck when we were referred to a surgeon who said come pay $50 USD consultation fee so as to determine the exact problem. He was also willing to work with payment plans.

We checked with Bindura Provincial Hospital, were we established there was a general surgeon according to the Provincial Medical Director. Bindura is about 90km from Harare, the capital.

We left Karanda at 2pm on our way back to Harare with our sick patient who was in terrible pain. We passed through Bindura hospital and met the surgeon who broke bad news that the theatre was not operating. We proceeded to Harare and got to the surgeon at around 5.30.

He diagnosed it as obstruction of the big intestines and said an operation was urgent. He billed USD1400 for his services. Anaesthetic was $700 cash. A Gel was required for the operation, and quotations were got. West End billed $900 USD, until we got one for $300 USD. Pari billed $100 per day. We rushed for a Covid test with one of the Labs which do not close. It was $75 and results would be ready after 5 hours. We picked up the results around midnight and went straight to Parirenyatwa hospital. Patient was admitted.

Parirenyatwa demanded $80 000 RTGS for bed (Zimbabwe local currency). And $600 USD for theater. Operation was successful done on the 3rd of September.

My question to you all is:

So if you don’t have USD $ you are clearly headed one way…death. Is this the health care we want? Do you need to know someone in order to get help? Why are public hospitals closed?