By Tanatsiwa Dambuza, Zimbabwe.
Doctors and Nurses on a Mission is a volunteer-led outreach initiative operating across marginalized communities in rural and peri-urban Zimbabwe. Most recently, they hosted a medical clinic at Warren Park, a high-density suburb on the south-western fringe of Harare, roughly 8 kilometres from the city’s central business district.
The clinic, now in its third year of operation, is organised in collaboration with St James Warren Park Anglican Church and offers free health services to church members and the wider community. The programme brings together doctors, nurses, and other health workers to run regular clinics in the neighbourhood, providing screenings and treatments at no cost. Warren Park is home to about 87,768 people, many of whom struggle to get reliable health care even though they live close to the capital. As the project’s CEO, Edmore Munyoro, explains, its founding purpose was to “bring healthcare into the community when the clinics were failing to meet people’s needs.” For the locals of Warren Park who sometimes must walk long distances or pay unaffordable fees for basic care, such outreach events can be life-saving.
The outreach programme emerged out of frontline medical workers’ own observations of Warren Park’s desperate needs. The CEO of Doctors and Nurses on a Mission recalls that, early on, volunteers noticed clients suffering from preventable conditions that were exacerbated due to late diagnosis and treatment. The initiative formally launched as these volunteers, many of them Zimbabwean doctors and nurses, decided to pool their time and resources and organise periodic “health camp” days in central community halls or church grounds. According to the CEO, the group initially started with basic activities like blood pressure checks and patient consultations. “We went house to house, inviting people to our first outreach,” he says. Soon, the programme expanded: it began to include measurements of weight, height, and blood sugar, free rapid testing for HIV and diabetes, as well as health education on topics like nutrition and hygiene. Later, when local dentists and midwives heard of the effort, they joined in with dental check-ups and maternity care advice.
Morgan Tatsvarey, a volunteer for the Doctors and Nurses on a Mission, described how the team worked with a local clinic: “On the days we set up, the neighbourhood polyclinic even let us use their folding beds for privacy.” Slowly, the initiative evolved into an informal yet well-coordinated project: volunteer shifts are planned, patients are triaged in an orderly queue, and a small pharmacy station distributes donated medications on-site. These outreach events often run all day, staffed by people who donate their services for a few hours or a weekend morning. The CEO notes that logistics are handled almost entirely by the volunteers themselves, with supplies donated by local NGOs or charities. Over the past few years, they have also built partnerships with community-based groups, including a local women’s group that offers maternal health support, and non-profits with a focus on education, in order to create awareness of their work. This grassroots structure, entirely non-profit and volunteer-based, is what makes the initiative unique: it is a community-driven health care service rather than a formal programme from the government or large agency.
This initiative is crucial because it fills a gap in Zimbabwe’s public health system, reaching people who might otherwise go without care. The country’s public health system is severely strained by chronic workforce shortages, tight budgets, and frequent stock-outs of essential medicines. A 2024 UNICEF report noted that Zimbabwe has only about 2.34 healthcare workers per 1,000 people, well below the WHO-recommended 4.45, which means the country faces a shortage of roughly 57,000 health professionals. In fact, by late 2022, the government employed only 1,724 doctors and 17,245 nurses for more than 16 million people. Many skilled workers have left the country, drawn by higher salaries abroad; Zimbabwe was recently added to the WHO’s “red list” of nations with critical health worker deficits. Public-sector nurses earn barely US$250 per month, and doctors earn around $450, which makes urban outreaches like this all the more vital to ease the burden on the few who remain.
Section 76 of Zimbabwe’s Constitution enshrines the right to basic health care for every citizen and permanent resident. In 2022, the government allocated 12.7% of the national budget to health, the third-largest item, a share larger than in many African countries but still below the 15% Abuja Declaration target agreed in 2001. The 2026 national budget’s decision to meet the 15% threshold is an important and welcome step, but financing alone will not guarantee access. To translate the budget increase into real improvement, the state and partners must prioritise upgrading facilities, stabilising medicine supply chains, investing in workforce retention and training, and strengthening primary care and referral systems so that the constitutional right to health becomes a lived reality for all.
Nationwide, these shortages show up as overburdened clinics and long patient waits. An Afrobarometer survey in 2025 found that when Zimbabweans visited public facilities, 74% reported excessively long waits and 86% encountered shortages of medicines or basic supplies. Two-thirds of patients said cost was a major barrier, and more than half found it difficult or very difficult to obtain needed care. In high-density suburbs, the situation has been extreme. For instance, it has been reported by an association that expectant mothers are usually turned away from the city polyclinics unless they come in active labour, because the understaffed clinics simply cannot take new antenatal patients. These conditions underscore why a volunteer-run clinic is a lifeline: in a system where at least 61% of visits to public clinics end with no medicines issued, and 74% involve unacceptable delays, the outreach team brings crucial services directly to the community. The volunteers are not a replacement for the government system, but they operate in its gaps, stepping in to provide care when the formal sector falls short.
Born from the challenges in the wider health system, initiatives like Doctors and Nurses on a Mission are invaluable. Patients in Warren Park have noticed the difference that this compassion-forward initiative makes. A beneficiary interviewed after a recent outreach was visibly moved when talking about the help she received. She explained that she had been unable to afford her hypertension medication and had not seen a doctor in years; through the mission, she was able to get a check-up and a prescription for free. “I had given up hope of going to a doctor,” she said, “but these volunteers came and cared for me like family.” Another resident, a mother of three, recalled how her youngest child was diagnosed with ear and eye infections at one of the camps and was then referred for treatment before the condition could worsen. These personal stories highlight how the service has filled a vacuum. As one beneficiary put it, “it felt like the volunteers were answering our prayers; they cared when nobody else was looking.” The warmth and empathy of the volunteers leave a strong impression. Many beneficiaries mention that beyond the medical assistance, the team takes time to explain care steps and to comfort anxious patients. This compassion is often cited as what makes the mission more than just a clinic; it is, in their words, a source of hope for Warren Park’s most vulnerable families.
Doctors and Nurses on a Mission have a clear way forward. The CEO has laid out a clear vision for sustainability and growth. He envisions expanding the programme to more areas beyond Warren Park, while simultaneously training local youth as community health workers so that the initiative does not depend indefinitely on external volunteers. “Our goal is to empower people here to continue the work themselves,” he explains. For now, funding is still tight, relying on occasional grants and donations, but he shares that plans are in place to establish a small development office and pursue more NGO partnerships. The CEO has spoken about creating a voluntary “mentorship” network with hospital staff, which would help integrate the outreach with official health services. He also mentioned, by way of an example, that they are exploring formal recognition from the Ministry of Health so that volunteer doctors can receive accreditation credits or allowances, a move he says would both legitimise and stabilise the programme. He also emphasised that part of their strategy is nurturing the next generation of volunteers by involving medical students and young professionals in each outreach. Further, the group is working on formalising schedules (so that people know when to expect clinics) and on training a cohort of local nurse volunteers who can run follow-up care sessions between the bigger outreach days.
Looking ahead, the team is determined to continue the mission. “This is our home; if we don’t help ourselves, who will?” said the CEO. By documenting their impact – patient by patient – they also hope to show funders how their model is making a real difference. The goal is a transition where the most medically able community members take over leadership roles, ensuring that the compassionate care these volunteers initiate becomes an enduring feature of Warren Park’s neighbourhood life.