The late musician Garry Mapanzure‘s sister, Kudzai Mapanzure Chikwanha, has blamed the country’s dysfunctional health system for his death and pleaded for the Government’s intervention.
Garry (23) died on Friday morning after he reportedly battled for his life for 12 hours, waiting for an ambulance to arrive.
Speaking at his brother’s burial in Masvingo on Sunday, an emotional Kudzai said she believed her brother would be alive today if the country’s health system was working. NewZimbabwe.com quoted Kudzai as saying::
I have one message which will not be right if I don’t say it today. The health system in Zimbabwe failed Garry. I want to say it because maybe they may hear us.
Maybe Garry would have been alive today, maybe somebody’s life or another child, maybe some other family won’t have to go through the pain we are going through. He held on for 12 hours but there was nothing in Masvingo.
To me, it just means that if anyone has a serious accident in Masvingo it is a death trap, you are dead, you are as good as dead.
Garry, I do not know what to say I never thought in my whole life that I would come here to bury Garry. No this is wrong.
People say it is God’s time but I do not believe that it was Garry’s time. If the Government can hear us, do something so that another family will not have to gather again.
Just one scan could have saved Garry just for him to look at what was going on in his brain. Just an ambulance could have taken him where he needed to go.
I asked the hospital in Masvingo they said they had no oxygen in the ambulance. Maybe something, I do not know I don’t know but I know Garry held on for 12 hours, it is not fair.
Mapanzure, whose real name was Garikai Munashe Mapanzure, was critically injured in a road traffic accident that occurred in Masvingo last Thursday.
Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi on Sunday said the accident also claimed the lives of Langton Mandima, a male aged 27, and Kai Mapanzure, a 3-month-old male infant.
The accident occurred at the 5 km peg along Masvingo – Beitbridge Road on 12th October 2023 when a Honda CRV vehicle collided head-on with a Mazda Damio.
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