The Cimas Medical Centre in Bulawayo has been officially renamed the Sipho Zwana Medical Centre in honour of one of Zimbabwe’s pioneering Black medical doctors and anaesthetists.
The renaming was announced on Wednesday during a ceremony attended by members of the Zwana family, medical practitioners, civic leaders and Cimas officials.
Cimas chief executive officer Vulindlela Ndlovu said the new name was not simply a corporate gesture, but an act of preserving the legacy of a man whose career helped shape Zimbabwe’s medical history.
“There are ceremonies where a company gives something to a family. This is not one of those. Today, a family gives something to a company. They are giving us a name, and once we accept it, we can never give it back,” Ndlovu said.
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Dr Sipho Leonard Vivian Zwana was born on March 19, 1933, at Tekwane Mission, the second-born son of Methodist minister Reverend Solomon Zwana and his wife Maria.
Ndlovu traced Dr Zwana’s journey to a 1954 Southern Rhodesian government circular listing eight Black students who received bursaries to study medicine, among them Zwana, Herbert Chitiyo and Samuel Parirenyatwa.
“That was not a bursary list. That was a country being written into existence, 26 years before it had a flag,” Ndlovu said.
Ndlovu narrated that Zwana studied at Kutama and Goromonzi before proceeding to the University of Natal Medical School in Durban, where he qualified with an MBChB in 1960 and became the first Ndebele to qualify as a medical doctor.
In 1961, he became the first Black doctor permitted to work at Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo. In 1970, he obtained a Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons and became the first Black Zimbabwean anaesthetist.
Ndlovu said Dr Zwana’s decision to specialise in anaesthesia demonstrated his commitment to service rather than recognition.
“The surgeon’s name is on the operation. The physician’s name is on the diagnosis. The anaesthetist’s name is on nothing at all. He was the man who watched while you slept,” he said.
Dr Zwana went on to work at several institutions in Zimbabwe and abroad, including Mpilo, Makumbe, Harare Central Hospital, Cardiff Royal Infirmary in the United Kingdom, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Ghana and Kenyatta Hospital in Kenya.
Ndlovu said despite opportunities to remain abroad, he returned to Zimbabwe in 1981 and worked at Bulawayo Central Hospital before joining Mater Dei Hospital in 1987.
He retired in December 2013 after 52 years of service.
Ndlovu said Dr Zwana’s legacy extended beyond medicine, describing him as a musician, avid reader and gardener who remained grounded despite his accomplishments.
“A naming is not a reward, he is far beyond rewarding. A naming is not sentiment, sentiment fades by Christmas. A naming is infrastructure for memory. Today we are naming a building after the man who taught us what it looks like when it is done perfectly,” Ndlovu said.
He said the decision was particularly significant as Cimas celebrates its 80th anniversary, drawing parallels between the organisation’s work and Dr Zwana’s philosophy of quietly serving others.
“Our best days are our invisible days, the emergency quietly covered, the surgery that simply proceeded, the family not ruined by an illness they could never have predicted,” Ndlovu said.
“May the path never close. Because at Cimas, we have always believed that together we make a difference. Today, we simply put a name to what that looks like.”
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