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Prof Levy Nyagura

Auxilia Katongomara, Chronicle Reporter
THE University of Zimbabwe (UZ) will soon invest $200 million in building a medical tourism hospital, the first of its kind in the country to cater for ailments whose treatment is not provided at other health facilities, the institution’s vice chancellor has said.

Medical tourism is where people who live in one country travel to another country to receive medical, dental and surgical care while at the same time receiving equal to or greater care than they would have in their own country, and are travelling for medical care because of affordability, better access to care or a higher level of quality of care.

UZ Vice-Chancellor, Professor Levi Nyagura said plans for the setting up of the institution were at an advanced stage and the site for construction had already been identified.

“We don’t want to duplicate Parirenyatwa Hospital. This would provide expert services that are not offered by Parirenyatwa which is a referral hospital,” said Prof Nyagura during a recent tour of universities in Asia and South America.

“We are working with the College of Health Sciences in terms of provision of health experts. We have already done designs and it is not going to be a cheap physical infrastructure. One has to invest between $150 and $200 million for state- of- the- art equipment,” said Prof Nyagura.

He said the medical institution would be constructed on one of the tertiary institution’s properties.

“I cannot disclose much but all I can say is that the paperwork is almost complete and we will be using land from one of our investments. We are looking forward to serving sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.

He shot down proposals to have a cluster hospital for all the universities saying its financing would be problematic.

— @AuxiliaK