Following Zimbabwean independence in 1980, the hospital was renamed in honour of Tichafa Samuel Parirenyatwa (1927–1962), a close associate of Joshua Nkomo and the first black person from the country to qualify as a doctor of medicine.

As well as its general medical and surgical sections, the hospital includes Mbuya Nehanda, a maternity section; Sekuru Kaguvi, which specialises in eye treatment; and an annex for psychiatric patients and several specialist paediatric wards.

The College of Health Sciences of the University of Zimbabwe is based at Parirenyatwa.

This is where the university's medical students train from third year onwards.

The hospital introduced a quality management program in hospitals in 2005, led by Thomas Zigora, Sydney Makarawo, Max Hove, and Kennedy Gombe, which proved a difference in the way of thinking in delivering health care services.