Abandoned and starving in Zimbabwe care homes
Updated on 02 September 2008
Mentally challenged adults are being abandoned with no-one to pay fees and provide clothing or medication, writes our Zimbabwean blogger.
Three packets of biscuits; 16 slices of bread; one large bowl of porridge; one boiled egg; two dishes of oxtail soup with added potato and pumpkin; two large plates of macaroni and salad; one litre of milk, six cups of tea and two scones.
This was what Daniel ate on the first day of a recent outing from a residential institution. With the exception of the milk and eggs, all the food that Daniel ate had been imported from South Africa as none of the ingredients are available in Zimbabwe.
Daniel isn't obese or even overweight - quite the opposite in fact. 33 years old, six foot two inches tall, Daniel doesn't speak. He is mentally handicapped and lives in a residential home outside Harare.
I hadn't seen Daniel for about four months and he had clearly lost weight in that time. In April Daniel weighed 128 pounds, by August he had dropped to 120. The loss of eight pounds have made a dramatic difference to Daniel's appearance.
Daniel has a shortage of vitamin BE which leaves him with almost continuous ulcerous sores on his shins and ankles.
His arms and legs are painfully thin, ribs and shoulder blades clearly visible and his face is gaunt and sculpted with eye sockets, cheekbones and forehead pronounced. Daniel used to weigh 160 - 170 pounds before Zimbabwe's political and economic turmoil began in 2000 and when food was plentiful and inflation was around 40 per cent.
Of the 120 men and women resident in the home for mentally challenged adults, 20 have been abandoned and no one pays their fees, provides clothing, toiletries or medication.
The Zimbabwe government are supposed to pay a monthly grant for every resident of the institution but the grants stopped coming a while ago - the government say they have no money.
Before the seizure of commercial farms, a steady stream of food donations were made to the institution. Farmers in the area regularly delivered eggs, milk, meat, potatoes, fruit and vegetables.
This doesn't happen anymore as agriculture has all but collapsed in the country and food surplus is non existent. The odd donation does come in but with 120 people to feed, they don't last long or go
far.
Daniel and the other residents are surviving almost entirely on maize meal porridge and cabbage. Most are not getting enough to eat and none are receiving a balanced diet. Eggs, milk, meat, rice, beans, cheese and fruit are almost never provided to residents and vitamin deficiencies are rife.
Daniel has a shortage of vitamin BE which leaves him with almost continuous ulcerous sores on his shins and ankles. At another institution for mentally ill adults, four residents died of malnutrition a few months ago and there were reports that a number of others had pellagra - a deficiency of nicotinic acid which often results in insanity.
Daniel has a very sweet tooth and added to his extraordinary menu that first day was one very large, family size packet of pink and white marshmallows. He ate the whole bag in one sitting! Vitamin content nil but his smile worth every extravagant un-nutritious mouthful!
