Zimbabwe July 2005 |
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| Shortage of Nurses hits rural hospitals, (The Herald, 2005-07-18):-A critical shortage of nurses has hit rural hospitals and health centres with Zimbabwe needing urgently 3 337 nurses. Government investigations have shown that 40 percent of rural health centres are being manned by untrained nurses while rural district council clinics need 1 278 nurses, a situation that has posed serious challenge to the health delivery system. The Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa, said one of the major reasons why the primary care nurse programme had been introduced and why the registered general nurse training output had been increased was to ensure that trained personnel would man all health centres. He was speaking at the inaugural graduation ceremony for 270 primary care nurses in Harare last week. "It is envisaged that by January 2007 all our rural health centres including clinics will be manned by one trained nurse and by two trained nurses by July 2008," he said. The 20 registered general nurses and 16 primary care nurses training schools throughout the country were expected to graduate more than 6 000 nurses by the end of 2007. Fourteen Government and six mission schools are currently conducting the three-year general nurse training programme while 16 centres are conducting the primary care nurse (PCN) training programme. At least 200 of the 270 inaugural graduates of the PCN programme have already been posted to several rural health centres, rural hospitals and mission hospitals where they are expected to boost health delivery services. "Our nursing vision is to have a health care service delivery system which is responsive to the health needs of the country and renders comprehensive high quality care. "This can only be done by ensuring that all the available nursing posts are filled," said Dr Parirenyatwa. At the present rate of training and attrition, Dr Parirenyatwa said, it was also envisaged that mission and rural hospitals would have 66 percent of their posts filled by January 2010. Among the 16 schools training PCNs in the country are Bonda, Murambinda, Mutambara, Mt Selinda, Howard, Nyadire, Silveira, Mnene, Sanyati and Tshelanyemba mission hospitals. Two more hospitals, St Albert's Mission and Guruve District Hospital are set to join commence training primary care nurses in January next year, which means more nurses would be produced. So far 504 primary care nurses have been trained. | |
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