By Jonathan Mbiriyamveka
Dubai-based Zimbabwean medical doctor — Allan Nhapi — arrived in Harare Tuesday with a view to setting up a world class referral hospital in the resort town of Victoria Falls start.
This follows his engagement with President Mnangagwa at the recently held Expo 2022 Dubai where the president promised to allocate him land.
The top-class referral hospital will offer specialized medical services that have seen many Zimbabweans travelling as far as China, Malaysia and India for treatment.
These include allergy and immunology; anesthesiology; dermatology; diagnostic radiology; emergency medicine; family medicine; internal medicine; medical genetics; neurology; nuclear medicine; obstetrics and gynecology; ophthalmology; pathology; pediatrics; and radiation oncology among others.
Speaking on arrival, Dr Nhapi, who has over 20 years of experience working in the diaspora said Victoria Falls was ideal for medical tourism hospital because of its location.
“You know why I say Victoria Falls? It’s because there is nothing like the Victoria Falls in this world. The Victoria Falls, central southern Africa is a world heritage listed site. It is one of the natural Seven Wonders of the World.
“It is so magnificent that when Victoria Falls is completely and well-advertised, marketed and packaged it will attract the whole world to this part of the world,” he said.
He added: “We have Vic Falls that’s a God given phenomenon. We should develop it, we have to develop the Victoria Falls. There is no body in this world that is 1807 meters wide and depths of 108 meters deep with a body of water that falls at the centrer 500 million litters in one minute. That’s our Victoria Falls. And it doesn’t end there. Even the way the Victoria Falls responds. The mist, the rainbow colours, the vegetation that come because of the mists. You can actually see the Victoria Falls mist 50 km away along the Bulawayo Road and yet in Zambia, you can see it 30 km away.”
Dr Nhapi said the hospital would be built as private-public partnership in line with the country’s Vision 2030 and the ‘Zimbabwe is open for business’ mantra.
Dr Nhapi said the hospital could help in promoting medical tourism since Zimbabwe was endowed with human resources.
“The specialists that Zimbabweans visit abroad are our people and what we need is to harness the talent so it comes back home,” he said.
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