Global health gaps: A grieving son’s diary of loss and remembrance

THREE weeks ago, my wife Sithabiso and I were at a private medical facility in Jakarta, marvelling at what might be the most efficient care I've ever experienced.

- ANDILE MASUKU

Following streamlined pre-consultation rituals and a thorough half-hour session with a passionate dermatologist, my niggling adult eczema in beast-mode was properly diagnosed and treated, clearing completely within a week and leaving me with empowering education about my condition.

The UK's National Health Service (NHS), competent though they were in serving me, had managed the same through frustratingly cautious, iterative protocols over several weeks.

Our business trip was interrupted by devastating news: my father had been rushed to hospital after suffering what we would later discover was heart failure. The irony wasn't lost on me.

Here I was, accessing impromptu premium private care all medical tourist-like, treatment that most Indonesians couldn't dream of affording. Meanwhile back home in Zimbabwe, Dr Leonard Masuku (aka Baba, Dad, The Bali to my brothers and I) was facing a medical crisis where even relatively privileged healthcare access couldn't guarantee optimal results.

The week prior, Sithabiso had travelled to Bali for the 2025 International Health Economics Association Congress (IHEA Congress), the premier global forum where researchers present findings on everything from public service quality to strategic financing reforms. I'd tagged along, ahead of us both heading to Indonesia's heaving capital on business.

The timing felt almost cruelly apt. In the wake of the worldwide health economics community debating optimal resource allocation and efficiency gains, news reached us that my father's condition had deteriorated rapidly. We cut our trip short and flew to Zimbabwe.

What followed was a sobering education in the brutal mathematics of medical provision under strain, culminating in one of the saddest days of my life.