When Jasper Simalie suffered from severe respiratory complications two years ago, his family had no reason to fear for the worst. They had their hopes pinned on Zimbabwe's affordable health care service, which enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best in Southern Africa. And it delivered. The condition returned to haunt him last year, and this time the family made frantic but futile efforts to find affordable treatment. Simalie's illness forced him to stay at home for three months. He was retrenched, and left with only enough money to pay his way back to his rural home in the northwestern province of Binga. Hospitals, according to Simalie, "are now a place to die - they refer everyone to a filthy deathbed under a hardworking but underfunded home-based care system."