Online Reporter
Farirai Machivenyika
Senior Reporter
TREASURY has approved the recruitment of close to 9 000 nurses in a major intervention aimed at easing staffing shortages in the country’s public health sector, where vacancies have been driven largely by migration.
The Ministry of Health and Child Care confirmed that the green light from the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion, will significantly boost efforts to strengthen service delivery in public hospitals, which are currently operating with an estimated shortage of about 14 000 nurses.
Appearing before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care, Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Dr Aspect Maunganidze, described the development as a turning point in ongoing reforms to expand the health workforce.
“So, the current situation is that we have an additional 8 785 new posts for health and this is a very significant development and is in line with the intention of our strategy in human resources to double the health workforce by 2030,” he said.
“But for us to achieve this, we need to increase production, which is training of the health workers. And then we need to expand our establishment.
“Our establishment is still old, yet our needs are now much more. So that establishment is being expanded in this manner.”
Dr Maunganidze said recruitment processes have already started, with Government working to ensure that qualified and competent personnel are deployed across health institutions.
“We are busy filling those posts and the picture is now totally different from the prevailing one and we want to make sure that appropriately skilled and competent nurses are in place.
“We will share the current state in this second quarter soon. But otherwise, this recruitment is ongoing and moving very well. As you are aware, many new nursing schools are on board.
“We are also looking at other nursing schools so that we can increase production. We started a pilot private training for nurses in Kadoma, which is going to take its first intake in May. If this pilot is successful, we will spread it across the country,” Dr Maunganidze said.
On infrastructure development, he said progress was being made on key health facilities, although some projects were still behind schedule due to funding constraints.
In particular, he said construction of the Lupane Provincial Hospital in Matabeleland North was continuing.
