adminThupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
The Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZINA) has called on Government to consider taking over the administration of pensions and related benefits for health workers who are employed at mission hospitals.
ZINA president Mr Simbangaliso Mafa said in an interview yesterday that in most cases the health workers lived like paupers after retirement.
“We have a deplorable situation where most nurses and health workers employed in mission hospitals are walking away empty handed at the time of retirement,” he said.
“You will note that these are not incorporated in the Government pension scheme and struggle to live decent lives.
“The mission hospitals or health institutions do not offer them any meaningful retirement packages and we are saying Government should incorporate them into the main stream pension scheme to cushion them from such challenges.”
Mr Mafa said they were working on setting up an independent board that will carry out research on the state of the health situation in the country with the view of contributing towards the national health policy development.
He said it was important for Government to keep abreast with the state of human resources available against their needs and potential.
“We must have a data base of our human resource base and the needs that will help in addressing some of the challenges we are facing in the health sector,” said Mr Mafa.
“At the moment we have a lot of health facilities which are understaffed, yet we have over 3 000 unemployed trained nurses in the country.”
Mr Mafa said his association will soon role out community engagement programmes to educate people on the roles of health workers.
Online Reporter