Suspension of nurses’ bonding welcome

The bonding system can only work in a situation whereby Government has the capacity to absorb all nurses churned out by the different nursing schools in the country. The idea to bond nurses was very noble given the fact that health institutions were facing a critical shortage of staff, especially nurses, after many of them left the country for greener pastures in countries such South Africa, Botswana, Australia, New Zealand and Britain among others.
It was unfortunate that the same Government that is still facing a critical shortage of health staff was forced to freeze posts thereby drastically reducing its capacity to absorb graduate nurses. It therefore did not make any logic for Government to continue bonding nurses when it could not employ them.
The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare’s human resources director Ms Jane Mudyara said the decision by the Government to suspend the bonding of nurses which she said will remain in force as long as there was limited absorption capacity within the public health sector, will see Government releasing 532 diplomas for registered general nurses (RGNs) and 529 certificates for primary care nurses (PCNs) who were trained since 2009 and were yet to be employed.
The move will enable nurses to seek employment elsewhere and many of them are likely to seek employment outside the country. The Health Services Board has confirmed that government health institutions are still understaffed. The board’s acting executive director, Mr Michael Sande, said the saturation of the health professionals that the Ministry of Health appeared to have was in fact artificial. He said the move by the Government to suspend the bonding of nurses was out of the realisation that Government could not continue to deny the nurses other employment opportunities by holding onto their certificates when it could not give them the jobs.
The disturbing reality is that unless Government moves with speed to address the issue of its capacity to absorb its graduate nurses, the country will become a manpower training ground for other countries while its health institutions remain understaffed. The Ministry of Finance should prioritise the allocation of resources to critical areas such as the Ministry of Health so that it is able to improve its staffing levels.
Understaffing compromises the delivery of health services as the few workers are overworked and at the end of the day cannot provide quality service. We have situations whereby clinics are manned by nurse aids in rural areas and this cannot be allowed to continue given the fact that we have qualified nurses that have remained unemployed for years because the Government does not have the capacity to absorb them.
Many of the trained nurses want to work for their country and Government is forcing them to look elsewhere for employment because it has frozen nurses’ posts. The positive indicators of economic growth especially in the mining sector should enable the Government to lift the freeze on posts within the health sector. We want to once again implore Government not to allow another exodus of health staff because we need their services here.