THE Zimbabwe Senior Hospital Doctors Association (ZSHD), has called on government to be sincere and improve the living and working conditions of nurses to prevent the prevailing brain drain.
By Staff Reporter
In their solidarity message in honor of the International Nurses Day, Dr Grant Murewanehma, the Social Media Manager for the ZSHD said nurses were central and integral to the provision of quality healthcare.
We appreciate the central role played by nurses. We appreciate their sterling work and we urge the responsible authorities to actually improve or try and improve the working conditions of nurses across Zimbabwe particular now that we are going through or we are almost going over the COVID-19 because we seem like we are now getting into the fifth wave.
“We call upon the government to improve the conditions of nurses, their salaries, their working conditions, their working environment, provision of essential working tools, sundries, personal protective equipment (PPE) so that they can discharge their duties diligently,” said Dr Grant.
He added that the prevailing brain drain which is going on at an alarming rate can only be reversed and addressed through honoring and respecting the needs of healthcare workers.
“So far, the government has not been very active, they have tried to pass repressive legislation and so on and son on but that doesn’t seem to be stopping the brain drain. What they should do is try and improve their salaries and working conditions because the rate at which we are losing nurses, midwives and other essential healthcare workers is just saddening.”
According to the Heath Services Board (HSB), a total 2000 nurses left the country for greener pastures in 2021. Even though we do not have official current figures, there is a huge possibility that the number of nurses and other skilled healthcare personal who have left the country to date might have increased significantly.
