By Sharon Tawuya
Harare, (New Ziana)-Members of the Zimbabwean Parliament have urged the government to fully implement the 2014 Palliative Care Policy by creating a dedicated budget line for palliative care and ensuring services are available from ward level to Central Hospitals.
Palliative care is specialised medical care focused on providing relief from pain and other distressing symptoms of serious and life-limiting illnesses such as cancer, HIV and AIDS, and other non-communicable diseases, to improve quality of life for patients and their families.
Raising a point of national interest in the National Assembly on Tuesday when the House resumed sittings, Guruve North legislator, Tendai Pinduka called for inclusion of palliative care in all health institutions starting at ward and district level up to Central Hospitals.
“The Hospice and Palliative Care Association of Zimbabwe is pushing to include palliative care in all our health institutions in Zimbabwe,” he said.
He called for full implementation of the Palliative Care Policy, noting the commemoration of World Hospice and Palliative Care Day for 2026 on 30th October that was held at Mashambanzou Trust.
Contributing to the same debate, Warren Park MP, Shakespear Hamauswa called on the Ministry of Health and Child Care to prioritize palliative care funding and pain relief.
“I call upon the Ministry of Health and Child Care to create a dedicated budget line for palliative care under curative services funded by the sugar levy and airtime tax,” he said.
Hamauswa also called on the government to direct the National Pharmaceuticals Company of Zimbabwe (NatPharm) to ring-fence morphine to ensure zero stock-outs for pain management, particularly in rural areas.
“We must ring-fence morphine and ensure that hospitals have palliative care services at their disposal, mostly in rural areas, so that no patient suffers without pain relief,” he said.
This year the theme for commemoration was “Pain Management, an Essential Part of Palliative Care.”
Zimbabwe was one of the first African countries to establish organised palliative care through Island Hospice and was once regarded as a continental leader.
The country adopted the National Palliative Care Policy in 2014 and included palliative care in the National Health Strategy.
Despite these milestones, implementation has not kept pace and integration into the public health system remains slow more than a decade later, and the need for palliative care remains huge.
The World Health Organisation estimated that 1 in 60 Zimbabweans needs palliative care, with about 208 600 people dying from HIV and AIDS or cancer annually, including 200 000 from HIV and AIDS and 8 600 from cancer, with about 56 900 suffering from pain.
Experts estimate only about 10 percent of those who need palliative care in Zimbabwe are able to receive it with health experts raising alarm that thousands endure unnecessary suffering due to shortages and inadequate training of health workers.
Studies have shown a large proportion of patients present to hospital because of pain but many facilities have no pain medicines available, with specialists pointing to fear of prescribing opioids and weaknesses in medicine supply chains that lead to repeated stock-outs of morphine.
New Ziana
