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Zimbabwe: Killer Doctor at Large, Elections in 2 months but who cares (fwd)
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Nyanchama Matunda
Jan 13, 1995, 9:56:11 PM1/13/95
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|> From ro...@sn.wn.apc.org Thu Jan 12 12:09 EST 1995
|> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 95 19:08 EET
|> Originator: misa...@wn.apc.org
|> From: Inter Press Service Harare <ips...@gn.apc.org>
|> To: Multiple recipients of list <misa...@wn.apc.org>
|> Subject: Message from Ipshre
|> X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
|> X-Comment: MISA-News Distribution List
|>
|> ZIMBABWE-CRIME: Killer Doctor at Large
|>
|> By Janet Sebastian
|>
|> HARARE, Jan 12 (IPS) - The families of two children ''unlawfully
|> and negligently'' killed by anaesthetist, Richard McGow
|> an, have described Zimbabwe's legal system as ineffective.
|>
|> ''You respect the law according to how it works. If it
|> doesn't work effectively and is apparently flawed then you by
|> nature must react against it,'' said Kenyan lawyer Charles
|> Khaminwa, whose daughter, Lavender (10), was one of McGowan's
|> victims.
|>
|> Khaminwa spoke to IPS after Justice Paddington Garwe reserved
|> for two weeks sentencing the Scottish-born doctor for c
|> ulpable homicide, after he was found guilty of purposely
|> injecting patients with ''heavy'' doses of morphine.
|>
|> Racial Tensions are running high in the country over the
|> case. Among black Zimbabweans, McGowan is seen as having cal
|> lously experimented on mainly black patients without their
|> knowledge.
|>
|> He was defended by Chris Anderson, a law and order minister
|> under the former Rhodesian minority government.
|>
|> It is the first time a White doctor has been convicted of
|> medical negligence in Zimbabwe. Many believe he will get of
|> f with only a fine, although Attorney-General, Patrick
|> Chinamasa, urged the court to impose a custodial sentence
|> because
|> of McGowan's ''disregard for human life''.
|>
|> Zimbabwe is governed by a mixture of British and Dutch law,
|> and criminal proceedings are tried by a judge instead of
|> a jury.
|>
|> McGowan, on appeal, has been allowed to continue to practice
|> medicine and administer morphine. In most Western countr
|> ies, a doctor charged with ''medical negligence'' is banned from
|> practicing until the outcome of the case.
|>
|> Human rights groups believe McGowan's case raises a number of
|> questions regarding the practice of medicine and the le
|> gal system in Zimbabwe.
|>
|> ''There is very little protection under the law for members
|> of the public in terms of medical malpractice. If it wasn
|> 't for the efforts of the parents this issue would probably have
|> died a natural death,'' said Ozias Tungwarara, director
|> of ZimRights.
|>
|> The Harare-based group believes that the Health Professions
|> Council (HPC), the independent medical body first approac
|> hed by the victim's families, should have reported the matter to
|> the police long before parliament conducted an inquiry.
|>
|>
|>
|> ''The number of people involved and the overwhelming evidence
|> pointed towards negligence, but they (HPC) deliberately
|> did not act. Their stance lay with protecting and publicly
|> supporting McGowan. At that point they abdicated their respo
|> nsibility to the general public,'' added Tungwarara.
|>
|> Many argue the case is a glaring reflection of the race-based
|> class system.
|>
|> According to the human rights lawyer: ''Even when parliament
|> had made its findings, it took the attorney-general's of
|> fice two years to start thinking of prosecuting -- under
|> pressure.''
|>
|> Tungwarara also noted that even the judge had remarked that
|> the state could have brought a more serious charge over t
|> he issue of ''clinical trials'' -- McGowan's experimentation
|> with aneasthesia without the permission of his patients.
|>
|> There have been calls for the revamping of the HPC, which was
|> constituted under a parliamentary act.
|>
|> ''It should be independent but instead it has chosen to act
|> as a doctor's union,'' the ZimRights director noted. ''It
|> must change so that the public's cause can also be advanced.''
|>
|> McGowan was tried in July last year, on five counts of
|> medical negligence over the deaths of three children and two a
|> dults between 1986 and 1990. On Tuesday he was convicted on two
|> counts.
|>
|> All the victims unknowingly received spinal injections of
|> morphine ''exceeding what another anaesthetist would admini
|> ster'', Justice Garwe told the court during his judgement.
|>
|> Two-year-old Kalpesh Nagindas of Indian origin died in 1988
|> after a circumcision operation during which McGowan injec
|> ted him with 1.25mgs of morphine.
|>
|> Lavender Khaminwa died after receiving a lethal dose for an
|> apendicectomy operation in 1990.
|>
|> Mansukh Nagindas, Kalpesh's father, said he was ''outraged
|> that the courts could believe that just finding McGowan gu
|> ilty would keep us quiet. We won't let this end for our children
|> until they get justice''.
|>
|> McGowan was acquitted over the deaths of Zimbabwean Tsiti
|> Chidodo (4), Greek Irene Papatheocharous and Nigerian Rose
|> Apinke Osazuwa (62).
|>
|> Although McGowan's is the first medical negligence case to
|> result in a trial, there have been others settled ''in-hou
|> se''.
|>
|> In July 1982, Dr G. Patrikios, a general surgeon, was fined
|> around 500 US dollars by the HPC for allowing his nine-ye
|> ar-old stepson to amputate the leg of a patient while he videoed
|> the operation.
|>
|>
|> ''If you lose a limb in a country like the USA you'd get
|> millions. Here you get close to nothing ... people here rare
|> ly sue,'' said David Coltart, a Zimbabwean lawyer, following the
|> case.
|>
|> ''As a result professional people get away with murder -- and
|> that doesn't just apply to those in the medical field.
|> It's the same in the legal field. Perhaps it's because people in
|> this country have never had the choices,'' he added. (e
|> nds/ips/js/oa/95)
|>
|>
|> ZIMBABWE-POLITICS: Elections in two months - Who cares?
|>
|> By Gumisai Mutume
|>
|> HARARE, Jan 12 (IPS) - Agencies trying to run election education
|> programmes are finding it tough to get potential voters
|> interested in general elections due this year.
|>
|> ''Whether I vote or not it will not make a difference,'' says
|> 57-year-old retrenched factory worker, Mabasa Mukucha,
|> who supports the opposition ZANU Ndonga. ''My single vote is
|> insignificant to remove the present government.''
|>
|> This is the type of response you are most likely to get when
|> asking people in Zimbabwe how they feel about the coming
|> general elections.
|>
|> Schoolteacher Agnes Taruvinga says the only time she ever
|> voted was in the first general elections at independence in
|> 1980. ''There is no one to vote for, the opposition is just
|> not there so I cannot be bothered.''
|>
|> Joel Sibanda of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace
|> (CCJP) which is running a voter education programme say
|> s his organisation's ''main concern is voter apathy whose trend
|> has worsened since the 1990 general elections.''
|>
|> CCJP is currently forming task forces in districts across the
|> country to carry out the exercise using pamphlets, post
|> ers and drama to help Zimbabweans ''understand the implications
|> of elections''.
|>
|> There are some 15 opposition parties here, but the ruling
|> Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) h
|> olds all but three seats in the 150-member parliament.
|>
|> Since there is scant likelihood of any significant change,
|> elections are little more than an academic exercise.
|>
|> But CCJP together with Zimrights (another local human rights
|> group), the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and the Legal R
|> esources Foundation, are ''determined to make Zimbabweans
|> understand that they have a big role to play in the governance
|> of the country.''
|>
|> ''Our absolute aim is to educate people on how to choose a
|> Member of Parliament who will be accountable to them, tell
|> them what MPs do in parliament and what they are supposed to do
|> for their constituents,'' says Sibanda.
|>
|> Zimbabwean parliamentarians are notorious for abandoning
|> their constituencies between elections.
|>
|> ''We do not tell them what party to vote for because that is
|> for them to decide,'' adds Sibanda.
|>
|>
|> But Wurayayi Zembe of the opposition Democratic Party (DP)
|> feels the move is misguided.
|>
|> ''Why educate voters, it is a waste of time with the present
|> ZANU-PF hegemony. The ruling party is in control of the
|> media and voters have no independent choice because they have
|> never been allowed to hear what DP for example has to say
|> on national radio,'' charges Zembe.
|>
|> ''How can you educate voters on a democratic election when
|> the political atmosphere is not democratic? It does not ma
|> ke sense,'' adds a sceptical Zembe.
|>
|> However, Zimrights says although voter education is widely
|> talked about by development agencies and human rights grou
|> ps in Africa, its practice is quite rare.
|>
|> ''What is more common but less interesting is voter-
|> information,'' notes Zimrights in a pre-election publication.
|>
|> The only independent daily newspaper 'The Daily Gazette'
|> folded at the end of the year and the Zimbabwean government
|> has a monopoly on broadcasting in this southern African nation
|> of 10.4 million people.
|>
|> In protest against the alleged lack of a democratic
|> atmosphere in the country, DP is boycotting the elections, whose
|> date is yet to be announced.
|>
|> Political commentators have blamed the voter apathy on a host
|> of causes, including people's lack of experience with g
|> enuinely free and fair elections, weak and corrupt leadership,
|> the absence of a formidable opposition and fear of violen
|> ce and intimidation.
|>
|> Previous elections have been characterised by violence by
|> ruling party supporters against the opposition.
|>
|> A survey on the 1990 elections, carried out by a leading
|> political scientist Jonathan Moyo, found out that both highl
|> y and less educated Zimbabweans were among electors who do not
|> register to vote although he noted that as the voters' le
|> vel of education increased, so did the level of apathy.
|>
|> Slightly more than half of the then registered four million
|> voters went to the polls in 1990.
|>
|> Despite a massive advertising campaign calling on people to
|> sign up for the forthcoming polls during a 45-day period
|> between March and May last year, only 40 percent of the 5.5
|> million eligible voters turned out. The exercise had to be e
|> xtended first to early June, then again to late June.
|>
|> Since independence in 1980, President Robert Mugabe's
|> Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) has w
|> on all elections - held every five years.(end/ips/gm/js/kb/95)
|>
|>
|> //correction// ZIMBABWE-POLITICS: Elections in two months - Who
|> cares?
|>
|> //Att. editors. The title of the abovementioned story, just
|> moved from Harare, should read 'ZIMBABWE-POLITICS: Elections
|> this year - Who cares? //
|>
|> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 95 19:08 EET
|> Originator: misa...@wn.apc.org
|> From: Inter Press Service Harare <ips...@gn.apc.org>
|> To: Multiple recipients of list <misa...@wn.apc.org>
|> Subject: Message from Ipshre
|> X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
|> X-Comment: MISA-News Distribution List
|>
|> ZIMBABWE-CRIME: Killer Doctor at Large
|>
|> By Janet Sebastian
|>
|> HARARE, Jan 12 (IPS) - The families of two children ''unlawfully
|> and negligently'' killed by anaesthetist, Richard McGow
|> an, have described Zimbabwe's legal system as ineffective.
|>
|> ''You respect the law according to how it works. If it
|> doesn't work effectively and is apparently flawed then you by
|> nature must react against it,'' said Kenyan lawyer Charles
|> Khaminwa, whose daughter, Lavender (10), was one of McGowan's
|> victims.
|>
|> Khaminwa spoke to IPS after Justice Paddington Garwe reserved
|> for two weeks sentencing the Scottish-born doctor for c
|> ulpable homicide, after he was found guilty of purposely
|> injecting patients with ''heavy'' doses of morphine.
|>
|> Racial Tensions are running high in the country over the
|> case. Among black Zimbabweans, McGowan is seen as having cal
|> lously experimented on mainly black patients without their
|> knowledge.
|>
|> He was defended by Chris Anderson, a law and order minister
|> under the former Rhodesian minority government.
|>
|> It is the first time a White doctor has been convicted of
|> medical negligence in Zimbabwe. Many believe he will get of
|> f with only a fine, although Attorney-General, Patrick
|> Chinamasa, urged the court to impose a custodial sentence
|> because
|> of McGowan's ''disregard for human life''.
|>
|> Zimbabwe is governed by a mixture of British and Dutch law,
|> and criminal proceedings are tried by a judge instead of
|> a jury.
|>
|> McGowan, on appeal, has been allowed to continue to practice
|> medicine and administer morphine. In most Western countr
|> ies, a doctor charged with ''medical negligence'' is banned from
|> practicing until the outcome of the case.
|>
|> Human rights groups believe McGowan's case raises a number of
|> questions regarding the practice of medicine and the le
|> gal system in Zimbabwe.
|>
|> ''There is very little protection under the law for members
|> of the public in terms of medical malpractice. If it wasn
|> 't for the efforts of the parents this issue would probably have
|> died a natural death,'' said Ozias Tungwarara, director
|> of ZimRights.
|>
|> The Harare-based group believes that the Health Professions
|> Council (HPC), the independent medical body first approac
|> hed by the victim's families, should have reported the matter to
|> the police long before parliament conducted an inquiry.
|>
|>
|>
|> ''The number of people involved and the overwhelming evidence
|> pointed towards negligence, but they (HPC) deliberately
|> did not act. Their stance lay with protecting and publicly
|> supporting McGowan. At that point they abdicated their respo
|> nsibility to the general public,'' added Tungwarara.
|>
|> Many argue the case is a glaring reflection of the race-based
|> class system.
|>
|> According to the human rights lawyer: ''Even when parliament
|> had made its findings, it took the attorney-general's of
|> fice two years to start thinking of prosecuting -- under
|> pressure.''
|>
|> Tungwarara also noted that even the judge had remarked that
|> the state could have brought a more serious charge over t
|> he issue of ''clinical trials'' -- McGowan's experimentation
|> with aneasthesia without the permission of his patients.
|>
|> There have been calls for the revamping of the HPC, which was
|> constituted under a parliamentary act.
|>
|> ''It should be independent but instead it has chosen to act
|> as a doctor's union,'' the ZimRights director noted. ''It
|> must change so that the public's cause can also be advanced.''
|>
|> McGowan was tried in July last year, on five counts of
|> medical negligence over the deaths of three children and two a
|> dults between 1986 and 1990. On Tuesday he was convicted on two
|> counts.
|>
|> All the victims unknowingly received spinal injections of
|> morphine ''exceeding what another anaesthetist would admini
|> ster'', Justice Garwe told the court during his judgement.
|>
|> Two-year-old Kalpesh Nagindas of Indian origin died in 1988
|> after a circumcision operation during which McGowan injec
|> ted him with 1.25mgs of morphine.
|>
|> Lavender Khaminwa died after receiving a lethal dose for an
|> apendicectomy operation in 1990.
|>
|> Mansukh Nagindas, Kalpesh's father, said he was ''outraged
|> that the courts could believe that just finding McGowan gu
|> ilty would keep us quiet. We won't let this end for our children
|> until they get justice''.
|>
|> McGowan was acquitted over the deaths of Zimbabwean Tsiti
|> Chidodo (4), Greek Irene Papatheocharous and Nigerian Rose
|> Apinke Osazuwa (62).
|>
|> Although McGowan's is the first medical negligence case to
|> result in a trial, there have been others settled ''in-hou
|> se''.
|>
|> In July 1982, Dr G. Patrikios, a general surgeon, was fined
|> around 500 US dollars by the HPC for allowing his nine-ye
|> ar-old stepson to amputate the leg of a patient while he videoed
|> the operation.
|>
|>
|> ''If you lose a limb in a country like the USA you'd get
|> millions. Here you get close to nothing ... people here rare
|> ly sue,'' said David Coltart, a Zimbabwean lawyer, following the
|> case.
|>
|> ''As a result professional people get away with murder -- and
|> that doesn't just apply to those in the medical field.
|> It's the same in the legal field. Perhaps it's because people in
|> this country have never had the choices,'' he added. (e
|> nds/ips/js/oa/95)
|>
|>
|> ZIMBABWE-POLITICS: Elections in two months - Who cares?
|>
|> By Gumisai Mutume
|>
|> HARARE, Jan 12 (IPS) - Agencies trying to run election education
|> programmes are finding it tough to get potential voters
|> interested in general elections due this year.
|>
|> ''Whether I vote or not it will not make a difference,'' says
|> 57-year-old retrenched factory worker, Mabasa Mukucha,
|> who supports the opposition ZANU Ndonga. ''My single vote is
|> insignificant to remove the present government.''
|>
|> This is the type of response you are most likely to get when
|> asking people in Zimbabwe how they feel about the coming
|> general elections.
|>
|> Schoolteacher Agnes Taruvinga says the only time she ever
|> voted was in the first general elections at independence in
|> 1980. ''There is no one to vote for, the opposition is just
|> not there so I cannot be bothered.''
|>
|> Joel Sibanda of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace
|> (CCJP) which is running a voter education programme say
|> s his organisation's ''main concern is voter apathy whose trend
|> has worsened since the 1990 general elections.''
|>
|> CCJP is currently forming task forces in districts across the
|> country to carry out the exercise using pamphlets, post
|> ers and drama to help Zimbabweans ''understand the implications
|> of elections''.
|>
|> There are some 15 opposition parties here, but the ruling
|> Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) h
|> olds all but three seats in the 150-member parliament.
|>
|> Since there is scant likelihood of any significant change,
|> elections are little more than an academic exercise.
|>
|> But CCJP together with Zimrights (another local human rights
|> group), the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and the Legal R
|> esources Foundation, are ''determined to make Zimbabweans
|> understand that they have a big role to play in the governance
|> of the country.''
|>
|> ''Our absolute aim is to educate people on how to choose a
|> Member of Parliament who will be accountable to them, tell
|> them what MPs do in parliament and what they are supposed to do
|> for their constituents,'' says Sibanda.
|>
|> Zimbabwean parliamentarians are notorious for abandoning
|> their constituencies between elections.
|>
|> ''We do not tell them what party to vote for because that is
|> for them to decide,'' adds Sibanda.
|>
|>
|> But Wurayayi Zembe of the opposition Democratic Party (DP)
|> feels the move is misguided.
|>
|> ''Why educate voters, it is a waste of time with the present
|> ZANU-PF hegemony. The ruling party is in control of the
|> media and voters have no independent choice because they have
|> never been allowed to hear what DP for example has to say
|> on national radio,'' charges Zembe.
|>
|> ''How can you educate voters on a democratic election when
|> the political atmosphere is not democratic? It does not ma
|> ke sense,'' adds a sceptical Zembe.
|>
|> However, Zimrights says although voter education is widely
|> talked about by development agencies and human rights grou
|> ps in Africa, its practice is quite rare.
|>
|> ''What is more common but less interesting is voter-
|> information,'' notes Zimrights in a pre-election publication.
|>
|> The only independent daily newspaper 'The Daily Gazette'
|> folded at the end of the year and the Zimbabwean government
|> has a monopoly on broadcasting in this southern African nation
|> of 10.4 million people.
|>
|> In protest against the alleged lack of a democratic
|> atmosphere in the country, DP is boycotting the elections, whose
|> date is yet to be announced.
|>
|> Political commentators have blamed the voter apathy on a host
|> of causes, including people's lack of experience with g
|> enuinely free and fair elections, weak and corrupt leadership,
|> the absence of a formidable opposition and fear of violen
|> ce and intimidation.
|>
|> Previous elections have been characterised by violence by
|> ruling party supporters against the opposition.
|>
|> A survey on the 1990 elections, carried out by a leading
|> political scientist Jonathan Moyo, found out that both highl
|> y and less educated Zimbabweans were among electors who do not
|> register to vote although he noted that as the voters' le
|> vel of education increased, so did the level of apathy.
|>
|> Slightly more than half of the then registered four million
|> voters went to the polls in 1990.
|>
|> Despite a massive advertising campaign calling on people to
|> sign up for the forthcoming polls during a 45-day period
|> between March and May last year, only 40 percent of the 5.5
|> million eligible voters turned out. The exercise had to be e
|> xtended first to early June, then again to late June.
|>
|> Since independence in 1980, President Robert Mugabe's
|> Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) has w
|> on all elections - held every five years.(end/ips/gm/js/kb/95)
|>
|>
|> //correction// ZIMBABWE-POLITICS: Elections in two months - Who
|> cares?
|>
|> //Att. editors. The title of the abovementioned story, just
|> moved from Harare, should read 'ZIMBABWE-POLITICS: Elections
|> this year - Who cares? //
|>
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