Harare - Public hospitals in Zimbabwe will start accepting payment for all medical services in foreign currency; a development which the government hopes will improve the country's collapsed health service. The state-owned daily Herald, in its Saturday edition, quotes Zimbabwe's Health Minister David Parirenyatwa saying the hospitals would give patients the option to pay in foreign currency if they "so wished."
"What we have said is that our patients should continue paying in local currency, but in the event that they opt to pay in foreign currency, we are to go by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe regulations," Parirenyatwa is quoted by the Herald as saying.
Zimbabwe's currency has rapidly lost value over the last year. Commodities, including basics such as milk and bread, are now priced in foreign currency. The Zimbabwean dollar, which has been devaluated repeatedly over the past two years, is trading at more than six billion dollars against the US dollar as of Saturday, the price of a loaf of bread.
Doctors and nurses have been on strike for more than two months, demanding payment in foreign currency and modern equipment for hospitals.
That strike has compounded the problems in the battle against a raging cholera epidemic, which has claimed more than 1,500 lives and affected more than 20,000 people as the country fails to import adequate stocks of chemicals to treat water, forcing people to resort to shallow wells and rivers for drinking water.
