Bulawayo – Hospitals are on a path to recovery with most of them now operating at about 60 percent capacity in terms of drug stocks, it is said.

Zimbabwe’s Deputy Prime Minister, Thokozani Khupe (pictured) said she was pleased to note that there had been progress in the two clusters that fall under her portfolio, namely the Social, and the Rights and Interests clusters.

The social cluster is compromised of the following ministries, Health and Child Welfare; Education, Sports, Art and Culture; Higher Education; Labour and Social Welfare; Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community development; Local Government and lastly, Youth.

In the past few years, the shortage of drugs in the country had encouraged corruption with reports of medical staff stealing them from the hospitals’ dispensaries for re-sell to patients at exorbitant prices.

The rights and Interest cluster is made up of these ministries; the organ of National Healing, Constitution and Parliamentary Affairs; Justice; Foreign Affairs.

“There is now food in the shops, schools have reopened, hospitals now have 60 percent capacity of drugs,” she said.

Khupe said throughout the year, she has been fundraising for hospitals and other medical centres.

“Just last week, I distributed sanitary wear to major hospitals throughout the country as a way to show that this is what our health institutions need. I saw for myself the improvements in many hospitals and I wish to applaud hospital staff for the hard work. Such small gestures, such as sanitary donations make a huge difference in the quality of service that the nation gets,” she said.

Khupe said the efforts of the Inclusive Government have ushered in a new era of hope among the majority of Zimbabweans who have seen significant changes as far as service delivery is concerned.

She said many ministries had achieved a lot with limited resources from the Short Term Emergency Recovery Programme (STERP) and the 100-Day Plan.

“It is clear that not all challenges require financial resources, for some cases it is just a question of reorganising ourselves, reorganising our priorities and ensuring that we put in place everything necessary to restore our basic service delivery,’’ she said.