From Basher Attwell
I write in response to the interview with Timothy Stamps,
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Health
(20 October, p 50).
In attacking the WHO, Stamps presents himself as some kind of champion
of world medical rights. He should direct his attentions closer to home.
When Zimbabwe gained independence, it had one of Africa’s best-run
community-based family planning services. Under the current government,
family planning has been totally marginalised, with pitiful funding. Since
independence, whole generations have moved through school and into their
reproductive years in the absence of any clear population policy. Millions of
women in Zimbabwe are now condemned to go through a regime of repeated
childbearing, and the country has fertility levels that are probably unrivalled
anywhere in the world.
Stamps claims that one “cannot have a prospering national health service
without political commitment”. But it is precisely his own ministry’s lack of
commitment to family planning that has denied Zimbabwean people their basic
reproductive rights. Whatever the reason for this grossly irresponsible
omission, the fact is that millions now lead lives of greater poverty and
reduced health as a result.
Stamps stressed that Zimbabwe’s AIDS data is notoriously unreliable,
particularly with regard to prevalence. Yet this did not stop him from going on
to make the statement that “Zimbabwe will reach zero population growth by next
year”. How can he make such a precise projection based on imprecise data?
Whether the claim is valid I do not know, but it does lead to the odd view in
some circles that because HIV is depressing growth rates, family planning need
no longer be a concern.
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Aside from its impact on population growth, bearing eight children will have
an impact on a woman’s health and quality of life, and on the ability of the
state to deliver basic development needs.
Harare
