Funding gap in health sector triggers medicines shortages, staffing crisis in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's health sector is facing a severe crisis due to significant funding gaps and unpredictable budget releases. Hospitals are struggling to maintain essential medicine stocks and retain staff, leading to worsening patient outcomes.
Why it matters
The collapse of public health infrastructure in Zimbabwe poses a direct threat to maternal and neonatal survival rates and highlights broader fiscal instability.
THE Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) says it is struggling to keep hospitals running, retain health workers in rural areas and secure essential medicines as unpredictable funding, collapsing donor support and growing disease burdens pile pressure on the health system.
Appearing before the Health and Child Care Parliamentary Portfolio Committee last Tuesday for the 2027 pre-budget consultations, Health secretary Aspect Maunganidze and the Health Service Commission (HSC) said while government has maintained hospital services and public health programmes in the first half of 2026, the system is operating under severe fiscal strain.
Maunganidze said the ministry’s desire was to have at least 70 percent availability of essential medicines across facilities, but current levels were hovering around 50 percent.
The shortage extends to commodities for non-communicable diseases, particularly patients with renal failure who require dialysis, and blood products that are critical to reducing maternal mortality.
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