Online Reporter
Farirai Machivenyika
Senior Reporter
More jobs are set to be created in the health sector after plans by the Ministry of Health and Child Care to recruit at least 20 000 village health workers to enhance the provision of primary healthcare services in rural communities.
The Ministry of Health and Child Care has also revived the training of primary care nurses (PCNs) to boost the delivery of health services, especially in rural areas.
This was said by the Permanent Secretary for Health and Child Care, Dr Aspect Maunganidze, when he appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care this week to brief them on the status of health services in rural areas.
“From a policy level, through the combat at the health centre level, we have a plan to increase the village worker levels from the current approximately 22 000 to at least 40 000, and the Ministry of Finance has committed finances for us to achieve this.
“We also, through the health system, would want to work on the introduction of active allowances, incentives, and also to prioritise rural healthcare workers who wish to further their education and prioritise them in postgraduate training.”
In addition, the Ministry of Health continues to strive to strengthen the community of workers’ strategies through refresher courses and integration into the formal health system.
Dr Maunganidze added that ideally, a rural health centre should be covered by a PCN while district hospitals should be covered by general nurses.
“We have revived the training of PCNs, which had unfortunately been stopped for a while, but we have revived and we have continued to build more primary care schools and make sure that those that are in existence but needed compensation, are being paid to train primary care nurses,” he said.
More resources are needed to construct additional rural healthcare centres.
“We also call upon Parliament to fast-track health-related legislation, especially those which will enable us to access more resources to improve health delivery.
“We will soon be bringing the National Health Insurance Bill, which we believe will unlock more resources for the Ministry to improve service delivery,” said Dr Maunganidze.
The Ministry of Health is also working on the roll-out of eHealth services to enhance linkages between primary healthcare centres and referral institutions along the chain.
The Second Republic, led by President Mnangagwa, has been building more healthcare facilities across the country to reduce the distance walked by those seeking health services to about 5 km.
In 2018, many people in rural areas were walking for over 25 km to the nearest health facility, but that has changed in most communities since then, as devolution funds have been deployed to construct clinics and health posts.
Peter Tanyanyiwa