My husband, Aidan Chidarikire, who has died aged 92, was appointed director of pharmacy services in Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health in the early 1980s, serving at a crucial time in the development of a healthcare system fit for the newly independent nation.
Under the previous white minority regime, health services had been heavily skewed towards the white population and cities, and against the rural areas where the vast majority of the population lived. The twin pillars of the new strategy, in which Aidan played a leading role, were the establishment of an essential drugs list to meet the health needs of the majority of the population, and country-wide, grassroots-led training workshops, to ensure key medicines were for the first time well managed and accessible.
