Online Reporter
Trust Freddy
Zimpapers Correspondent
THE Health Service Commission (HSC) is moving to implement mandatory breathalyser tests and drug screenings for all medical personnel as part of a new robust framework to combat drug and alcohol abuse within the medical field.
This comes amid revelations that more than 100 medical practitioners across the country are battling drug and substance abuse-related challenges.
The move, which mirrors safety protocols in the mining and manufacturing sectors, aims to ensure that the country’s 52 000 health workers are of “sound mind” when attending to patients.
Speaking at a stakeholder consultative meeting at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals on Tuesday, HSC Secretary Dr Christopher Pasi said the commission was shifting from a purely disciplinary approach to a preventive one to protect the nation’s “expensive” human resources.
”The issue of, for example, substance testing or breathalysers, which occur in other industries such as complex manufacturing or mining, is an issue that we need to look at,” said Dr Pasi.
“How can we encompass that within our own regulation so that this issue of substance abuse is not only a danger to the person themselves but to the patient that is being managed?”
Dr Pasi added that dismissing healthcare professionals for addiction is a national loss, given the intensive, high-cost training required to produce them.
“The health service, in particular the professional cadres, is an expensive workforce for us in terms of training, in terms of the time that they take and the resources,” Dr Pasi said.
“It is better to have a preventive approach towards the management of these issues.”
He also revealed that one professional council reported that 10 percent of its disciplinary cases are now related to substance abuse.
The new strategy will see the HSC partnering with the Health Professions Authority (HPA) to create a technical team tasked with standardising regulations across all eight health councils. Key features of the proposed framework include capacitating managers to identify early signs of addiction, establishing confidential peer-reporting systems, and potentially introducing breathalysers or substance testing—measures already common in the mining and manufacturing sectors.
Dr Pasi cited long working hours, the stress of patient management and easy access to “dangerous drugs” within clinical environments as primary drivers of the problem.
“We need all our health workforce to be of sound mind when they are managing our patients,” he added, noting that the commission will also introduce “gender wellness and inclusivity” workstreams to encourage staff to seek help before their conditions reach an advanced stage.
HPA Secretary-General Mrs Clotilda Chimbwanda welcomed the coordinated effort, stating that while individual councils have been dealing with reports of abuse, a unified protocol is necessary.
“We do have a challenge of drug and substance abuse that is ongoing and we commend the efforts that have been taken up by the Health Service Commission to come up with a coordinated approach that covers all the practitioners in terms of the regulators to see how we can standardise our efforts and our initiatives that we put in place to curb this and try and mitigate this,” she said.
“In terms of the extent of the problem, yes, definitely it is there. There have been reports across all the councils of substance abuse and the councils are dealing with them in different ways, where they have health committees and other protocols that they follow.
“But one of the key issues is to now come up with something standardised, which is what we are here for today, with the Health Service Commission facilitating.”
According to the health committee of the medical and dental practitioners’ council, they have almost 100 practitioners who are being supervised around the country, with alcohol and substance abuse problems.
