Back to Index

Government insincere on health issue
Nokholo Mhluzani
February 21, 2012

Recently the government announced that it does not have the capacity to hire and remunerate more than a thousand state registered nurses who were issued with their diplomas in 2010 and 2011. This assertion which amounts to acceptance by the government that it is abdicating its duties has some bad taste in it especially in view of the fact that it is premised on the spurious excuse that the government has no resources to pay nurses. The move paves way for nurses in the country to seek greener pastures in neighbouring countries and puts at risk the lives of the residents who have to go to ill-equipped and under-manned hospitals. Initially government would withhold diplomas for nurses who completed their training arguing that they were supposed to be bonded to Government health institutions for at least three years.

While this is clearly an easy exit for the government which has developed a penchant for running away from its responsibilities (remember the teachers- incentives), this move puts pressure on the already overburdened patient to nurse ratio. It is also a perpetuation of the old syndrome where patients are left to suffer because there are no nurses to attend to them and the results have been very glaring considering infant, child and maternal mortality rates in the country. At a time when HIV/AIDS has depleted the health sector the government needs to find a way of harnessing all the resources at its disposal to develop the sector.

In its insincerity the government of Zimbabwe wants Zimbabweans to believe that it cannot continue bonding nurses, who have played a pivotal role in as far as reducing the health crisis is concerned, because of lack of resources. This cannot be the case because Zimbabweans are aware of the diamonds being looted at Marange and the leakages that have become the order of the day in most of Zimbabwe-s border posts. While money is available to pay Members of Parliament, senators and councillors who are ill-equipped for governance tasks (judging from the little that the GNU has done) it is tantamount to betrayal for government to claim inadequacy of funds. More so, the Public Service Commission conducted an audit in January 2011 which revealed that there are between 45 000 and 70 000 "ghost" workers on the government payroll. The people who could not be traced impact heavily on the state-s already dry coffers. The government, through the Public Service Commission should ensure that these people are removed from the payroll as the salaries accorded to them could benefit hospitals that do not have adequate nursing staff.

The flimsy resources argument fails to hold any water especially in view of the fact that Zimbabweans are aware that police station walls across the country are awash with advertisements of vacancy notices in the security forces. Clearly if there are resources to continue recruiting for the army and the police forces why should the government fail to allocate resources to an essential sector like health.

The Zimbabwean government is indicating left and turning right in its purported fight against the brain drain. History is replete with statements of complaint about the brain drain and the many steps that the government is taking to avert it. Its actions on the nurses indicate that the brain drain argument is superficial and a political excuse for failure to provide essential services. The nurses will benefit countries like Botswana, South Africa and Namibia where they will not only be appreciated but also paid handsomely. The government invests a lot into the development of nurses- skills but instead of making use of the nurses so that they plough back into the nation-s coffers through tax and also assist in improving service delivery.

The importance that the government should attach to the revival of the health sector cannot be over emphasised. The contribution of nurses towards achieving that feat should not be overlooked. The expectation is that for the government, it should be business as usual. Efforts should be made to ensure that the money leakages in our economy are blocked and recovered, so that resources can be channelled to essential sectors such as health and the lives of the people of Zimbabwe improved. In addition to that, alternative means of resourcing like public-private partnerships should be employed to augment available funds. Otherwise even major referral hospitals will be reduced to clinics, and ineffective ones at that.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP