By Delicious Mathuthu
Harare, Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe’s crumbling public health system is once again under the microscope after media personality, cancer survivor and outspoken activist, Tinopona “Tin Tin” Katsande took to social media with a scathing critique with a viral post describing the state of Zimbabwe government hospitals as “some kind of genocide”.
Katsande, who rose to fame as an actress in Zimbabwe’s first soap opera, Studio 263, and later as a radio presenter for ZiFm Stereo, is accusing authorities of abandoning the nation’s most vulnerable who rely on the public healthcare system.
“I dare say it’s like some kind of genocide zvirikuitika muma (what is going on in) government hospitals edu,” she wrote.
“Yes, I SAID IT. Please don’t come at me with threats and scares… because handisikunyepa ba (I am not lying).”
Katsande’s sentiment, as she wrote, is not an abstract commentary but built on lived experience and firsthand loss.
She describes a healthcare system so broken that even basic necessities like syringes and painkillers are absent.
“If you don’t have money to buy your own medicine at a government hospital, even down to the actual needle for an injection, nine out of ten times unofa (you die) because washaya rubatsiro (you did not get help), NOT because ‘Mwari aita kuda kwake (of God’s will)” she fumed.
Her post, paints a devastating picture where patients are discharged without being treated, staff unsure of how to manage cases due to lack of equipment and drugs, and grieving families left with questions and heartbreak.
“Guys, people are being discharged kuti wazviwonere (so that they help themselves)… haaaa nooo mhani. Izvi hazvisikuita izvi (this is not good),” she wrote.
Katsande shared two recent personal tragedies, the death of a young girl in Mutoko due to an asthma attack when the entire hospital had no oxygen, no nebulizer, not even an asthma pump; and the death of one “baby Ropa” at Harare Hospital, whom she alleges was a victim of pure negligence.
Official reports support many of her claims as Zimbabwe’s public hospitals have been facing chronic shortages of medicines and equipment, worsened by reduced funding from both domestic and international sources.
The 2025 national budget allocated just over 10% to the Ministry of Health and Child Care, well below the 15% threshold pledged in the Abuja Declaration, which Zimbabwe is part of.
Equipment such as radiotherapy machines at Mpilo and Parirenyatwa hospitals have been non-functional for years, reports reveal, and according to the Community Working Group on Health, per capita health spending has also decreased significantly in the past year.
The healthcare worker crisis adds another layer to the catastrophe, as Katsande highlighted, with more than 4,000 trained professionals reported having left the country since 2021.
Zimbabwe now faces a shortfall of nearly 57,000 health workers, reports say, who have no tools to use, as Katsande wrote.
“Vanenge vangori tuzu tuzu (they will be just watching) also not knowing how to tell a desperate patient ‘We know what needs to be done but sorry we can’t help, we don’t have what we need to save you,’” she wrote.
The emotional climax of her post came with a piercing warning.
“KANA USINA BHEGHI MU ZIMBABWE (If you do not have money in Zimbabwe) and you get ill to require hospital attention, you better just choose your coffin now.”
She also questioned the sincerity of government departments in terms of communicating critical information to the public.
While the National AIDS Council recently assured the public of six-month supplies of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), Katsande questioned the integrity of such claims.
“Two months later vakuti (they say), two months supply available. Meaning the six months supply was a hoax?” she asked.
She also pointed out reports from some clinics claiming they have none of the medication in stock at all.
“Ma-clinic hobo (many clinics) are saying HAPANA MAPIRITSI ACHO ANYWAY! (there are no pills anyway)”
Vividly frustrated in her post, with temptation to use strong language in her post and somehow defiant, Katsande revealed that she is a cancer survivor and also knows the experience.
“I’m soooo so angry. No accountability for this NATIONAL DISASTER eating me worse than the cancer was,” she wrote, adding that “Ini ndaive murwere (cancer survivor), so handisikutaura (I am not speaking) from my a*. This sht is real.”
As she signed off, she left Zimbabweans with a haunting line.
“Off to bury Mai Kandice from Mabvuku who passed after yesterday’s visiting hour vakamirira ropa (waiting for blood)… She was anemic. Vaito famba vachirwara (she was walking sick), she didn’t know.”
