THE situation at most public hospitals has returned to normal following the resumption of work by nursing staff who had downed their tools, a health official has said.
Michael Gwarisa
The industrial action which saw not less than 5 974 nurses downing tools ended on April 22, 2018 following re-engagement of retired nursing staff below the age 70 as well as unemployed nurses
Addressing Journalists, health and child care minister, Dr David Parirenyatwa said the situation had improved owing to engagement between government and organisations representing nurses in the country.
“Service in our hospitals have since returned to normal utilising those nurses who did not participate in the industrial action beefed up by the recruitment of qualified nurses who were employed as well as nurses below 70 years who were retired.
“In addition, all nurses who were on official leave were recalled to duty. The majority of nurses who had been dismissed have reapplied for re-engagement and government has permitted them to resume duty pending duty final approval from the employer,” said Dr Minister Parirenyatwa.
He added that the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) has allocated per institution to recruit of the RGNs nurses to recruit.
“Institutions are directed to recruit the maximum allocated figure. We have enough trained/qualified nurses who are unemployed to fill up these allocated quotas.
“It is regrettable and unfortunate that the nurde fraternity chose to down tools when government was seriously addressing the issues that nurses and other health profession categories had raised in terms of allowances and relativities.”
Meanwhile, visits conducted by HealthTimes indicates that the situation was yet to return to full normalcy as some hospitals like Parirenyatwa still had few nursing staff to attend to patients while at Harare hospital, some nurses were seen seated outside during working hours.
