Twenty-Five children who were being treated of cancer free of charge under the Musha Mukadzi, Zimbabwe Armed Forces Foundation have been left stranded following the closure of Trauma Centre Medical Facility. Dr Vivek Solanki, former owner of the Trauma Centre in Belgravia in Harare, was forced to stop all his business operations two weeks ago by a Supreme Court ruling on September 23 against his ownership claims.
The ruling paved way for African Medical Investments (AMI) to assume onwership.
MMZAFF chairperson Mrs Mary Chiwenga, last week said the closure of Trauma Centre was a major setback as their charity did not know where to take patients who benefited under their charity organisation.
“We were in comfort zone at Trauma (Centre), now we cannot approach other institutions because we will not be able to raise the money needed for our cancer patients at other medical institutions.
“At Trauma Centre we had a good partnership under which our patients were treated at very reasonable amounts.
“It is not only the cancer patients who benefited from our partnership, war veterans and other uniformed forces were also treated at the medical facility. Right now we do not know what will happen,” she said.
She said although Dr Solanki was opening another clinic in Borrowdale, it was small and could not cater for all the patients.
Dr Solanki’s departure has seen the institution being closed, leaving at least 150 employees jobless with the new owners said to be looking for a buyer to purchase the hospital.
In an interview, Dr Solanki on Friday said he was waiting for municipality approval to open his clinic in Borrowdale, but said the closure of Trauma Centre had forced him to shelve some of his charity work.
“All my charity work is coming to an end, including the partnership with MMZAFF, where I was treating 25 children with various cancers for free.
“I sponsor various students at (the) University of Zimbabwe recommended by the President’s office for Health. Their scholarships will be stopped. We have five students on this,” he said.
Dr Solanki said he was still pursuing the case against AMI, saying the High Court was still to rule on the ownership of Streamleigh Investments, which owns Trauma Centre.
“I am the owner of Streamleigh Investments whose ownership wrangle will be determined by the High Court. How can the Supreme Court rule on that without the matter being brought to it and expect the High Court to follow their decision. How can I evict myself when I own both companies (Autoband and Streamleigh),” he said.
Although Dr Solanki claimed ownership of the institution, Sable Mining — who are the winning tenant — said Dr Solanki was only a tenant when AMI brought in US$10 million as capital to construct the centre into a state-of-the-art institution. Herald
COMMENTS
All very confusing, seemingly purposely and ZimSit/herald etc seem to be played. The ‘new’ owners would appear to be the original owners whilst Solanki is playing a further confusing war of words and contradictions.
Only the Supreme court can work this out and do what is right finally.
The whole issue has been a bad reflection on the players in particular, and Zimbabwe’s business culture in general
Shame
Didn’t he jambanja the clinic in the first instance, using armed men who burst in through the doors scaring the daylights out of staff, patients and visitors. What sort of character is this doctor?