City’s health workers exodus continues

Talent Gore
THE exodus of health workers from the Harare City Council continues, with the municipality presently grappling to fill 555 nursing posts.

This has further crippled the city’s health delivery system.

Addressing a recent meeting of the council’s Education, Health, Housing and Community Services and Licensing Committee, director of health services, Dr Prosper Chonzi, said the health workers, particularly nurses, were leaving in big numbers because of poor working conditions and remuneration.

The vacant posts include 229 for midwives and 326 for registered nurses, an untenable scenario given that most pregnant women in Harare rely on municipal clinics, because they are located within their communities.

The nurses are joining either central Government-run hospitals or going abroad where countries are recruiting nurses, doctors and other health professionals, to beef up their public health sectors.