Category: Newspaper Publications

Posted on

Health Services Board laments 3 000 jobless nurses

October 23, 2015 in National, News
NursesOver 3 000 nurses in the country are not employed at a time most health facilities are operating with skeleton staff, Health Services Board (HSB) chairman Lovemore Mbengeranwa has lamented.
By Phyllis Mbanje
Speaking at the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) annual conference in Harare on Wednesday, Mbengeranwa said while Treasury had no money to employ more health personnel, the country was facing a critical shortage of nurses.

“There is need to increase the health budget because how can the posts be filled up when Treasury cannot pay them?” Mbengeranwa queried.
The Abuja Declaration states that governments should allocate 15% of their national budgets to health, but Treasury has been falling short on that lately.
Thousands of nurses left the country for greener pastures at the height of the economic crisis between 2005 and 2009.
Most public health facilities were left with skeletal staff and the situation was worsened when the government put a freeze on recruitment, leaving thousands of nurses stranded upon completion of their studies.
Other stakeholders who had gathered for the CWGH conference also raised concern over the problem which was common at most health facilities.
Director of the Women Action Group, Edinah Musiyiwa, challenged stakeholders to question the detaining of women who fail to pay for maternity fees.
“At policy level, user fees for pregnant women have been scrapped, but at the hospitals, it is a different issue. Someone should question that,” she said.
“The maternal mortality rate is still high at 614 deaths per
100 000 live births and such issues of user fees are some of the reasons women end up giving birth at home.”
Recently, the Harare Residents’ Trust reported that women were being detained at Harare Central Hospital after failing to pay for maternity services.

Posted on

Health institutions short staffed

November 2, 2015 Local News
Health Reporter
Public health institutions continue to be dogged by a serious shortage of personnel, leading to low levels of service delivery. The situation is further complicated by a decision by Government to build new hospitals across the country although it has frozen recruitment of health workers. Health Services Board chairperson Dr Lovemore Mbengeranwa confirmed the challenges recently.
He told a Community Working Group on Health annual general meeting held in Harare that staff was being moved from existing health facilities to new ones, leading to serious understaffing. “I am sure you are all aware that we need Treasury concurrence whenever we want to recruit new cadres and it is not always a smooth process to recruit new staff,” said Dr Mbengeranwa.
He said there were more than 3 000 unemployed but qualified nurses on the streets and that there was no hope that they would be employed anytime soon. “The situation has not changed but we continue to negotiate with Treasury for opening of more posts so that we absorb all the nurses,” said Dr Mbengeranwa. He said owing to the increased population and disease burden in the country, there was need for more staff in health facilities.
Dr Mbengeranwa said Government, with support from development partners, was working on a survey to ascertain the actual number of nurses or doctors required at each facility at a given time. The last review of staff requirements in the health sector was done in the 1960s.
Nurses Association of Zimbabwe (ZiNA) president Ms Regina Smith urged Government to speed up reviewing of staff compliments and come up with ways of absorbing unemployed nurses. Ms Smith said ZiNA was concerned that the unemployed nurses would have to undergo retraining when they eventually get employment.
“Government should quickly find ways of absorbing the unemployed nurses because if they continue roaming the streets, they will have to undergo retraining, which is very frustrating than the actual training,” she said.

Posted on

National Health Insurance Scheme noble, but . . .

October 21, 2015 Local News
Health Reporter
Government should engage in wide consultations on the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) before implementation to ensure its successful rollout, Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) executive director Mr Itai Rusike has said.
Speaking at a science café on Domestic Health Financing organised by the Health Journalists Association of Zimbabwe (HeJAZ) in Harare yesterday, Mr Rusike said the NHIS was a noble initiative but Government should embrace stakeholders’ input for its success.
“We hope once approved, the Ministry of Health and Child Care will not rush to roll it out nationally without proper consultations. It’s a brilliant initiative with a potential to assist the majority of Zimbabweans failing to access health services because of cost barriers,” said Mr Rusike.
Mr Rusike said civil society does not have faith in the proposal that the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) should administer the fund because of its history on investing in failed banks, giving paltry benefits to pensioners and current scandals that have led to the dismissal of its senior management.
“We do not know how far the ministry (Health and Child Care) has consulted with regards to its implementation but we strongly feel it should take a lead in its implementation instead of the proposed National Social Security Authority (NSSA),” said Mr Rusike.
He said although there was need to mull local sources of funding for health, issues of accountability and transparency to those local sources should not be overlooked.
Citing the example of the National Aids Trust Fund, Mr Rusike said there was need for the National Aids Council (NAC) to revive its initial structures which stretch down to the village level to ensure transparency.
“When NAC was in the embryonic form, they used to have structures down to the ward level but all these structures no longer exist. The structures now end with the district action Aids co-ordinators. Who then is NAC accountable to?” said Mr Rusike.
He also urged Government to take seriously yearly reports produced by the Auditor-General, Mrs Mildred Chiri, on the health sector.
“We are yet to see anyone arrested from the results of forensic audits produced by the Auditor-General year in and year out. This is what contributes to effective use of available resources,” he said.
Speaking at the same occasion, planning and donor co-ordination officer in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Mr Gwati Gwati said there was need for contingent measures to health financing in Zimbabwe as the sector was largely donor-dependent.
Mr Gwati said Government has completed work on earmarked taxes such as taxing alcohol, tobacco, mobile communications, mining and value added tax on certain products.
“This evidence (that the country can raise money locally through these initiatives) is yet to be presented to Cabinet by the minister but all work has been completed,” said Mr Gwati.
He said these taxes would enable the health system to put resources together and respond to the health needs of the country.
Zimbabwe is a signatory to the April 2001 Abuja Declaration which recommends at least 15 percent of countries’ national budgets to be channelled towards health.
However, since adoption of the declaration, the country has never surpassed the Abuja target with the highest allocation so far being 12,3 percent allocated in 2011.
Other allocations range between 6 and 9 percent of the National Budget.
These allocations fall far short of the World Health Organisation (WHO) per capita recommendations of $34 as they range between $12 and $29.
According to Natpharm – Government’s sole drug supplier – over 70 percent of drugs in stock are supported by donors.

Posted on

Zimbabwe’s Infant, Maternal Mortality Rates Drop

Credits: Voice of America

by Sebastian Mohfu

HARARE — The United Nations is reporting huge improvements in Zimbabwe’s prenatal, newborn and maternal health care over the past five years.

However, the U.N. Children’s Fund says the survey indicates that Zimbabwe must continue working to improve health standards.

According to research findings released Friday, Zimbabwe’s infant and maternal mortality rates have declined by 20 and 36 percent, respectively, since 2009.

The number of pregnant women who received prenatal care increased from 57 to 70 percent, while mothers accessing care after giving birth had soared from 27 to 78 percent.

The UNICEF research was funded by the European Union and the government of Zimbabwe.

Much of Zimbabwe’s progress is due to assistance from a multinational fund dedicated to improving health care for mothers, newsborns and young children.

Despite these encouraging results, UNICEF’s chief representative in Zimbabwe, Reza Hossaini, says it is still too early to say all is well with early child care in the southern African country.

“Let us keep in mind that, yes, we have won battles here and there,” said Hossaini. “We have bent the [trends of] maternal mortality, but we have really not won the war as yet. These gains cannot be sustained and further progress cannot be made if we lose our focus from those strategic choices that we have made, now that we know they have delivered positive results.”

Two of those strategic choices were investing in the health sector’s human resources and making sure that the country maintains adequate supplies of necessary drugs.

Failure on those fronts was the major undoing of Zimbabwe’s health sector over the past two decades.

It was only after organizations such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the European Union poured in money that the situation changed.

Optimism

Itai Rusike, who heads the Community Working Group on Health, an organization fighting for all Zimbabweans to enjoy health care, expressed optimism about the UNICEF report.

“Generally it is a good report,” said Rusike. “It gives us hope in the sense that the indicators are kind of improving. But this report has to be linked up to what is happening on the ground.”

But he added there a dire need for better water and sanitation in most parts of Zimbabwe persists. More than 30 percent of Zimbabweans still do not have access to safe drinking water, the research showed, and Rusike said the real number is likely higher than that, since most water taps in urban areas are dry.

Dr. Gerald Gwinji, permanent secretary at Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health, is more upbea, calling the new health report one that gives the country a sense of direction.

“We now have to work on issues of quality and equity,” he said. “These survey results are going to be one of our pillars of our next health strategy, and the next step is to do a bottleneck analysis [of the] ministry of health and child care. This will help to determine where to focus to help further improve on our health indicators.”

Gwinji said Zimbabwe’s maternal mortality rate — 614 deaths in every 100,000 pregnancies — and infant mortality rate of 75 per 100,000 are still too high. He says further investment can reduce those losses.

Posted on

Zimbabwe Cholera Epidemic Persists in Harare Amid Continued Water Woes

Credits: Voice of America November 02, 2009 10:26 AM

Cholera infections continue to occur in Zimbabwe’s capital city, Harare, and in the nearby satellite town of Chitungwiza, despite a steep decline in other parts of the country, according to the latest World Health Organization report on the nine-month epidemic.

The WHO reported 105 new cases in Harare, Chitungwiza and the Harare suburb of Budiriro in the five days through Monday, though listing no new deaths. But the Harare region has accounted for 19,232 cases and 653 deaths since the epidemic began in late 2008.

Cases nationally totaled 97,795 resulting in 4,265 deaths from the disease.

WHO attributed the persistence of the cholera epidemic in the capital region to disruptions in the local water supply and continued unhygienic disposal of waste.

Executive director Itai Rusike of the Community Working Group on Health told reporter Patience Rusere of VOA’s Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the capital region risks another major outbreak of cholera when heavy rains resume in September.