adminThandeka Moyo, Health Reporter
THE new Health Bill is set to tackle staff shortages in public health centres with most rural district clinics said to be manned by two or three nurses.
Civic society hopes the Government will fix the manpower challenge through the Bill, which has been tabled in Parliament. Nurse shortages are a major challenge in the health sector despite massive training but Treasury cites budgetary constraints for the recruitment freeze.
In an interview, Community Working Group on Health executive director, Mr Itai Rusike, said it was crucial to have a specific clause that’s speaks to issues of healthcare staff establishment in the Bill given that the current staff establishment was determined by 1982 population statistics. “Most of our rural clinics are run by two or three nurses, which jeopardises the quality of healthcare generally. The issue of staff establishment for health workers is fully covered in the Health Services Act that is separate from the Public Health Act, which specifically address public health issues,” said Mr Rusike. “It is important that the two public health policies be harmonised so that they speak to each other hence our plea that the staff establishment issue be included in the new Public Health Bill.”
He said population and the disease burden has doubled over the years hence the need to recruit more nurses and other health care practitioners.
“Government policy says there should be a clinic within an 8km radius but we still have places such as the newly resettlement areas that do not have health facilities and people have to travel more than 20km to access health care services. At the moment we have about 1 600 health facilities in Zimbabwe,” said Mr Rusike.
He added that there are about 4000 nurses who are skilled in Zimbabwe but cannot be employed because of the recruitment freeze.
“The recruitment freeze has unfortunately resulted in a situation where one nurse is doing the work of twenty-five nurses and one doctor doing the work of nine doctors, according to World Health Organisation thresholds of best practice,” said Mr Rusike.
According to WHO there should be one doctor to service 2 000 people and three nurses per 1000 people.
“Since 2010, the health sector has not been able to absorb all the nurses produced from the various training institutions owing to a number of factors, such as the freeze on recruitment and failure to expand the Ministry of Health and Child Care’s staff establishment in line with the increase in workload since the last review in the 1980s,” he added.
Mr Rusike said although the Bill did not specify how Government would to fix the problem, they were hopeful the staff establishment will improve.
“At the moment the Bill only specifies that some offices will be introduced within the Ministry of Health and Child Care and there is nothing on staff establishment. However, now that there will be public hearings we hope health worker organisations, civic organisations will lobby that we have a specific clause so that we do not work with assumptions,” he said.
Mr Rusike urged members of the public to attend new Health Bill hearing meetings, which will commence on March 5 countrywide.
The hearings start on March 5 at the Gweru Theatre at 9AM followed by a meeting at Runde RDC boardroom in Zvishavane in the afternoon. Masvingo will be the venue on March 6 in the morning followed by Mwenezi in the afternoon. On March 7 it will be Beitbridge and Gwanda, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care said. Bulawayo meeting will be at Iminyela Hall on March 8 from 10AM with Binga coming on the following day at 9AM and 2PM on the same day in Hwange.
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