Her Heart Now Mended, Shumirai Magidi Reclaims Her Independence
In May 2025, Shumirai Magidi shared with SolidarMed, the implementing partner for the PEN-Plus clinic in Zimbabwe, her experience of living with rheumatic heart disease. (Photo: ©Laura Ruckstuhl)
Shumirai Magidi, a 48-year-old mother of six who lives in a quiet rural stretch of Chabata Village in the Bikita District of southeastern Zimbabwe, is known for her resilience. Yet that strength was put to the test several years ago, when her health began to fail.
What started as chest pains and breathlessness soon robbed her of the ability to do everyday chores. “I lost my dignity and confidence as a woman,” she recalled. “I couldn’t do anything on my own, not even cook for my family or sweep.”
The family lived off piece work, subsistence farming, and firewood sales, so Magidi’s inability to help support her family constrained already scarce resources.
With her condition deteriorating, she visited Silveira Mission Hospital, where she received a difficult diagnosis: she had rheumatic heart disease and needed an echocardiogram, which could be accessed only in South Africa.
“It felt like a stone hit me in the face,” said Magidi. “Where could I even begin to find money for a trip outside the country?”
In early 2022, while she was pregnant with her sixth child, her health worsened dramatically. Her husband, desperate and frightened, rolled her for three kilometers in a wheelbarrow along a country road to a dropoff point for Silveira Mission Hospital.
Over the next year and a half, Magidi received referrals to Bikita Rural Hospital, then Ndanga District Hospital, and then back to Chikuku Rural Hospital, her local health center. It was there, in July 2023, that she enrolled in the PEN-Plus program supported by SolidarMed, a nonprofit working to provide healthcare in southern and eastern Africa.
Through the PEN-Plus program, Magidi was able to undergo a SolidarMed-supported echocardiogram at Masvingo Provincial Hospital, this time with her transportation costs covered, at great relief to the struggling family. By November 2024, she had been referred to the Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals in Harare, 400 kilometers away, where doctors determined she needed open-heart surgery.
The decision to proceed with surgery wasn’t easy. “When I told my relatives, they were shocked,” Magidi said. “In our village, no one had ever heard of someone surviving such a procedure.”
That anxiety extended to her husband, who hesitated to give the required consent. “He feared if anything went wrong,” Magidi added, “everyone would blame him.”
Initially, Magidi’s surgery was scheduled for just a week later, but then the operation was postponed without a new date. “Upon receiving that bulletin,” Magidi said, “I was so frustrated I told myself I was not going to do this anymore.”
In January 2025, a new call came: The surgery would happen the following month. With her health worsening by the day, Magidi decided to move forward.
“I had no choice,” she said. “I had a three-year-old child I needed to carry with me, and I could no longer wait.”
In February 2025, surgeons successfully repaired two valves in her heart, the first time the Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals had repaired two valves simultaneously.
Through the PEN-Plus program, SolidarMed not only supported the logistics and transportation, but also helped source costly surgical materials not readily available in Zimbabwe. And Magidi continues to receive her essential postoperative care—including free anticoagulation medication and ongoing monitoring—at the PEN-Plus clinic at Masvingo Provincial Hospital. There a SolidarMed-trained clinical team continues to guide her recovery.
Today, Magidi is a picture of recovery and hope. When she talks about once again being able to help provide for her family, she beams with pride.
“This surgery brought back my strength and my dignity,” she said. “I can now walk freely. I no longer struggle to breathe. I can cook, sweep, and even go to the fields with my husband. I got my life back.”
Written by Pius Moyo, communications officer at SolidarMed