Tuesday, 07 September 2010 21:35

BLANTYRE--Ask Malawi's new health minister whether drugs in the country's hospitals have an uncanny ability to elude health professionals who want to administer them and patients who need them.

He has no answer, unfortunately.

David Mphande wondered aloud why the local market has drugs when hospitals and clinics do not.

"How do the drugs get out of our hospitals. Do they go out through the windows or roofs?" he asked health officials at the referral and 1,000 bed Queen Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi’s business centre.

Mphande, according to the Daily Times of Tuesday, was on a familiarisation tour after his recent appointment by Pres Bingu wa Mutharika who reorganised his cabinet.

The minister has a suggestion for those who buy drugs from manufactures.

He told officials at Central Medical Stores--which handles medicines worth billions of kwacha annually—that they need to get their act together and make sure hospitals have enough supplies.

Malawians use two ways to get medical care: the conventional and the traditional. In the former, people seek care at hospitals and clinics and the main players include the government, the private sector (for profit) and the religious institutions. In the latter, herbalists are sought by people with health problems.

Street vendors, who didn’t have any training but were able to acquire medicines illegally, stopped selling drugs openly in Malawi, thanks to government efforts aimed at protecting the public.—maravipost

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Tuesday, 07 September 2010 21:35

BLANTYRE—You like gossip, right? Just a little. Is that what you said, just a little bit? So just itsy-bitsy of the juicy stuff. Okay. Sounds great. We can do that.

Here we go—but mind you the facts are not ours, we just happen to tell them in our own way. The details of the story are from the folks who can whet your appetite with their menu of salacious stuff. Yes, you know them, they are called Weekend Times.

It’s over between the man who once upon a time was gay and the woman who came out to tell the world that Steve indeed was the M-A-N! Not that anybody doubted the fact that Steve was a man in his "other" life, it’s just that at the time in question he saw in men what men saw in women.

So the lady who got the proof that Steve can give women what they want is the one who says their relationship is over. Dorothy Gulo, who burst into the limelight saying she was his lover and would marry ex-gay Steve Monjeza, says she is moving on.

The dude, according to Dorothy, is freaking too slow and doesn’t see the need to get married and settle down. You see, the lady wants the whole nine yards--an engagement to show that he is committed to her and finally tie the knot.

Why are we talking about the two anyway? Steve became a sensation after he and his partner Tiwonge Chimbalanga were freed from a short stint in prison after they were charged and sentenced for openly holding the first same-sex marriage in socially conservative Malawi.

Their trial made the world stop for a minute. In case you missed the drama, it took a whole secretary general of the United Nations to fly thousands of miles to Malawi to convince a whole president of country that the couple be pardoned. At Maravipost.com, our news monitors were on all night until the Nyakwawa Usiwa Usiwa, the judge in the case, brought the hammer down hard on the two, giving the maximum sentence allowed. 

Back to Steve and Dorothy: He may have issues which she can't deal with but Dorothy isn’t a saint either. He accuses her of failing to run a business which they both set up after a Zomba resident gave him K100, 000 to start a new life.

The free-wheeling Steve, who likes to have a good time--drinking and all that--says right now he is poor as a church mouse. Yes, the bloke is flat broke. The last time he had just gotten out of the joint and needed some cash, Steve was ready to sell his “story” to the highest bidder. But the story was going to be incomplete without his experiences with Tiwonge.

So, where’s Aunt Tiwo? Any word on what Steve's ex is up to?

Why should he know? Steve says he has nothing to do with Tiwonge.

Yeah right! Does it mean even if she, oops, even if he came in high heels, swinging his hips and holding it down--perhaps even better than a real woman--Steve wouldn't think twice? He lived the life before and it's not like there are no bisexuals in this world. 

No, he wouldn't.

To be fair to Steve, he did say the gay thing wasn’t his cup of tea. Steve, the world was told, likes women, according to Dorothy's ex.--maravipost

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