Dear Family and Friends,

Only once in the last seven days has there been electricity, water and telephone services at the same time and that was for less than two hours one afternoon. In the past week electricity has been off for 18 hours a day, every day, and water cuts last for days at a time. This is now the norm of life as everything is approaching, or has already reached, a state of complete collapse. All attempts at normal day to day functioning are virtually impossible.

This week I had a first hand encounter with the precarious state of Zimbabwe's health delivery system and it made me very aware of why we have the lowest life expectancy in the world. My body had been aching for two days and I was racked with fever: dripping with sweat one minute and shaking with uncontrollable cold the next. I knew I needed help and was fortunate to be able to see a doctor - this is a luxury most Zimbabweans rarely have. The first sign of abnormality came after the blood test when the doctor apologised for not providing a plaster - something so simple but now unobtainable. It was an insignificant inconvenience. Far worse lay ahead. There are four pharmacies in the town and none had the common drug that had been prescribed to treat malaria. An alternative drug was proposed but none of the chemists had this one either. Malaria: so common, so deadly, no drugs for treatment - this was chilling.

My next stop was the hospital, by now I was weak and disorientated and had only got this far thanks to the help of a friend with a car - another rare luxury unavailable to most. Only four patients occupied beds: few can afford the hundreds of millions of dollars needed per night. The hospital also didn't have the prescribed malaria drug, or the alternative that I needed. Finally a course of injections was made available but only if I could pay cash upfront for the vials so the hospital could immediately try and replace them. How many others before me had been down this road and not been so lucky?

Over the next five days I visited the hospital every morning for another precious injection. For three days and nights the hospital had no running water at all. When the doctor did his rounds, nurses trickled water from a jug over his hands after he had examined each patient. A local farmer had helped and provided a bowser of water but this was being carried in, by the bucket load, to flush toilets, clean human waste, wash dishes and equipment and sponge down patients. The hospital, like the rest of the town, was only getting electricity in the middle of the night; water was being boiled outside on open wood fires. A generator was dealing with emergencies, the cost of running it phenomenal.

Every day I felt so privileged to be receiving treatment from nurses working under such appalling conditions. They have left home without a hot meal or cup of tea in the morning. They will return home to carry water from wells, cook outside on open fires and prepare for another day of much the same. And yet always they were polite, professional, helpful and gentle. On my last day I asked the nurse when she would have time off - I seemed to have seen her there every day. She told me they were short staffed because so many nurses had gone. "Gone to the Diaspora," she said.

"To Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, South Africa, Botswana - anywhere." I asked the nurse what made her stay and she said it was very hard to go. As hard as it to stay. Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle 26 January 2008 www.cathybuckle.com My books:

"African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available in South Africa from:

books@clarkesbooks.co.za and in the UK from: orders@africabookcentre.com To subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write to: cbuckle@mango.zw