Govt comes to minors’ aid Dr Parirenyatwa
Dr Parirenyatwa

Dr Parirenyatwa

Abigail Mawonde Herald Correspondent
Government yesterday intervened and ensured two minors with a rare skin cancer condition were admitted at Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare and are attended to by specialists. The children, Bridget Mandimutsira of Mabvuku and Natasha Matimba of Norton, were no longer receiving medical attention after doctors at the hospital had failed to provide a solution to their condition. This saw Health and Child Care Minister David Parirenyatwa intervening.

“We have seen the cases of children both below the age of 10, who have got this very rare skin disease that is caused by a mismatch or a disrepair in the DNA of the parents,” he said.

“In this particular case, the skin disease also, because of its nature, can then form all these little sores which sometimes can coalesce and become one sore while sometimes they remain like that and manifest as cancers which seem to be the case in these two cases that we have seen.

“Both of them have been seen previously in this institution, but they have not gotten really any much better, so we believe that we should admit them here and be able to have our experts properly work on them to find the way forward.

“This is a centre where they do both chemotherapy and radiotherapy for cancers and we will be able to hear from the experts when they have done their work whether or not it is appropriate to do any of those particular approaches here,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But they will do so. The kids are really not well. They are failing to thrive and it is a very touching story.”

Dr Parirenyatwa said there were indications that there were more such cases in Epworth and pledged to make a follow up.

“One of the most important issues is for us to push a lot of awareness on cancer,” he said. “Real blitz on awareness so that a lot of these cases are caught early or earlier than they have been caught now.

“I have met both parents of the children and they really have been good nurses for their children — very committed and have not stigmatised the conditions — and that is very important.”

Dr Parirenyatwa said children under five years should receive free treatment.

“What normally happens is that our policy is generally that any child who is below the age of five, we treat them for free,” he said. “These are now seven or eight, but I am sure they started much earlier and the issue of fees payment is so critical in our vulnerable groups and each case should be seen by our institutions.

“I think that is what has happened in this particular case, that we are now taking our responsibility for this. But as a Ministry, we believe that we must emphasise our policy on anybody below five years, no payment. But, however, all vulnerable groups, anybody who cannot be able to pay should be catered for under our public social welfare as a safety net.”

Dr Parirenyatwa said the health sector deserved capacitation.

Bridget’s mother Ms Benedict Makumbe thanked Dr Parirenyatwa for the intervention.

“We are very happy to have met the Minister who has made it possible that our children may get medical attention from specialists,” she said.

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