MEDICAL Practitioners are set to be rewarded for their contributions to the development of the health sector when the inaugural Zimbabwe Medical Awards are held next month in the capital.
The awards will honour an array of Zimbabwean doctors who have made worthy interventions in the health sector, including those who died on the forefront fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.
Apart from the awards, the Zimbabwe Medical Awards Trust (Zmat) is seeking to hold annual workshops to motivate medical professionals and specialists.
They have also formed a charity project — The Good Doctors — which provides assistance to families of departed medical professionals and specialists. It also offers free medical diagnosis and treatment to the families of the deceased. Zmat chairperson Josephat Chiripanyanga said the event would be held annually.
“The idea of the Zimbabwe Medical Awards started when we realised that the medical professionals here in the country are not being honoured like in other countries,” he said.
“We visited other countries and we saw them honouring their medical professionals, their doctors, their nurses, their pharmacists, their lab scientists and we came back home and realised that this is not being done to our medical professionals.
“That’s when we agreed to come up with the noble idea to honour our health professional. So, as we honour our doctors, we decided to start by the legends. Those that pioneered in the medical industry, for instance the first local medical physician, heart surgeon, brain surgeon, first psychiatric surgeon, etc.
“We are going to honour doctors who we lost to Covid-19. We want to honour them posthumously as they lost their lives in the quest to save the country.
“We will be having a board, a panel that will be going throughout the country looking for doctors that are excelling, hospitals that will be excelling, clinics that are excelling, pharmacists that are excelling and medical institutions that are excelling.
“We give awards on merit to these medical professionals. This will go a long way in motivating our medical professionals.”
Chiripanyanga said preparations for the awards were already in motion.
“We have invited the Vice President and Honourable minister of Health Constantino Chiwenga to be the guest of honour,” he said.
“We have already booked the venue, we have also nominated our recipients and we are going to be inviting them to come for the event. We are partnering with different corporate organisations at different levels to be part of this event.”
by
Rumbidzai Ngwenya
STAFF WRITER