THE continued economic hardships and poor conditions of service for nurses have further dampened morale in the nursing camp, with indications that more experienced nurses are already processing paperwork to leave the country for better employment opportunities.

By Michael Gwarisa

Zimbabwe is currently battling one of its worst exodus in skilled nursing personal, amidst indications that in 2021, at least 2000 nurses were confirmed to have left the country for greener pastures and under the prevailing situation, more are likely to leave before the year ends.

There has also been an upsurge in the number of locals taking up Nurse Aid courses. However, non from amongst the new recruits have intentions of working in Zimbabwe as there is a ready market for them in the United Kingdom (UK) and other countries where healthcare is functional.

A mini survey conducted by this publication recently gathered that majority of the nurses manning departments in various health facilities are highly demotivated. Some are currently undergoing English lessons and other procedures required for nurses before they migrate to the receiving countries.

The Citizens Health Watch (CHW), a Civil Society Organisation that drives citizen-centred health monitoring, research, information generation collation, validation, dissemination, usage and advocacy also confirmed to this publication that morale was low and there was need to address the issue of nurses’ confidence as a matter of urgency.

Fungisayi Dube, a trustee with the CHW said the exodus of nurses had overwhelmed the remaining nurses and as result, they were now fatigued and struggling to deliver their duties properly.

What I know is that the Exodus is now out of control and hospital departments are being manned by very few people. I think that is where most of the problems are emanating from. The saddening thing is that if you are to visit a health institution today and you try to talk to nurses, they won’t be paying much attention as they will be busy reading their English notes because they want to leave.

“Those who have failed to leave the country believe maybe it is because they are cursed or something because to them , the normal thing right now is to leave and they believe they should have left the country just like their counterparts. Our government needs to do something, the situation in the hospitals is not normal, the grievances of nurses need to be addressed so as to address this issue of exodus of nurses,” said Dube.

She added that nurses were appealing to government to hire more health personal to augment the existing skeletal workforce. She also said there is need for a human resources audit to ascertain the actual number of nurses who have left the country and the government needs to make a bold move to curb these human resources leakages.

“We need an actual audit if they are serious to turn this around. Also, we need to respond to the needs of health personals and we need to engage them not from a position of threats but on a position of really wanting to listen and understand what’s happening. There are no nurses and we want nurses. There are nurses who have never worked, we could make use of them.”

In their International nurses' day statement, the Zimbabwe Nurse's Association ( ZINA) 
Secretary General, Mr Enoch Dongo said they cherish and appreciate the little strides 
being made by the current leadership through the ministry of health to revamp the health
system.

“However, the little strides are not in an way improving the odious state of the health system nor the deplorable conditions of the health workers. As we commemorate this special day, international nurses’ day , we are grappling with some insurmountable challenges which threatens our profession as well as our existence as a people.

“The paltry salaries currently being offered to the health workers is a mockery vis a vis the sterling job which the health workers discharge. We implore our employer (government) to be sincere and dump the sickening penchant of shifting goalposts whenever engagements which revolves around remuneration are in motion. We sincerely urge our leaders to desist from insensitivity and hypocrisy.

“We demand remuneration which is in tandem or way above the poverty datum line. Morale has hit rock bottom in the health sector due to government insensitivity when it comes to the grievances of the health workers,” said Dongo.
He added that as an association, they were at pains due to the continuous brain drain currently obtaining in the sector.

“Specialist health workers continue to migrate from our nation to either regional or European nations in search of the greener pastures. Our leadership should be alive to this sickening reality and move with speed to curb brain drain. Brain drain is now a festering nemesis which should be addressed before the quality of the health system is further compromised.

“Furthermore, we implore the incumbent national leadership to desist from populism for political mileage. It is fundamental that the national leadership walk the talk and fulfill their promises. Zimbabweans are accustomed to resilience but such a diagnostic permanent feature on the health system should not be used as the premise for abuse.”