Culture, Health & Society
lured many pilgrims to Mutemwa for prayers, ultimately leading to the pilgrims paying a visit to leprosy patients as well. A new committee was then later formed and was called the Zimbabwe Leprosy Association (ZLA). For continued financial support to Mutemwa, the John Bradburne Memorial Society (founded in 1995) works in conjunction with the ZLA to raise funds. The leprosy centre still needs financial aid as primary funds are largely raised from donations. Charles Sandy, the deputy director of the Aids and Tuberculosis Programme in the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare was previously quoted saying the country managed to reach the leprosy elimination target set by the World Health Organisation and now records less than one percent cases of leprosy in the country. “We cannot rule out the fact that we have the disease in the country because in 2011, we recorded three cases in Manicaland and Mashonaland,” he said. Due to the minimal cases of leprosy, the centre now cares for at least 20 destitute or handicapped patients in addition to the ones that are leprosy stricken. TP
was initially from Malawi. She narrates how she eventually got married to Mr Grant; a mentally disturbed man, believed to have murdered his wife and three children. Mutemwa remained open to care for such patients and others who had no suitable homes to return to. However, there was no one to care for these people because the doctors and nurses had left the place when it was initially closed.
A small committee was later formed in 1968 called “The Friends of Mutemwa” which was tasked with lending assistance to lepers under the auspices of John Bradburne, a priest from the Roman Catholic Church. After John Bradburne passed away, there have been reports of answered prayers and miraculous cures as well as supernatural phenomena transpiring at the Mutemwa mountain and dam which
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February 2013
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