Zimbabwe: Patient’s story

In Murwira Clinic, southeastern Zimbabwe, Dennis Taronga is receiving anti-retroviral therapy (ARVs) with the help of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Zimbabwe | 18 August 2009

Last January, I began feeling really sick. I felt weak and could not move. I was so badly ill, I thought I would die for sure. I had diarrhoea, felt very cold and was very dehydrated. I wasn’t working at the time – my family had to look after me.

My cousin brought me in a scotch cart to the MSF clinic in Murwira, where I also received treatment for HIV. For three days, I could not eat or drink. I only had an IV drip. But after four days, I started to feel good – I was so happy, able to move and to go back to my family.

Many others in my village were sick too. My uncle was very sick with cholera and died on the way to the hospital. I was very upset because none of us could go to his burial.

I thought I was going to die. There was nowhere else I could go. I don’t know how others escaped cholera. Now I know the illness is caused by dirty water. Now I know how not get sick when the rainy season comes back – I will use the aqua tabs from the MSF clinic here and then I won’t get sick again.

I come to the clinic now for my ARVs. Last year, we brought my child to the hospital in Murambinda where she died [as a result of] AIDS at just 18 months old. I was tested [for HIV] and they said that I was positive and so was my wife. Now we both come to the clinic here in Murwira for our ARVs.

If the clinic was not here, people would definitely get AIDS. It’s too expensive and too far away to get treatment anywhere else.

I would really like for MSF to keep on supporting us and keep us on supplying ARVs. I feel better now but I cannot find work and there is not enough food.

I hope that I can get work - carpentry, anything that can give us a good life... We are no longer [living life]. The job situation is not improving as the country is a desert. There is no money here. We are just sitting around with nothing. I just want to work for my family to get better.