The Sunday News
Tinomuda Chakanyuka Sunday News Reporter
THE Government is considering increasing enrolment of student nurses, following pressure from aspiring trainee nurses who are now unable to enrol following the reduction of enrolment numbers into the programme last year. Some of the aspiring students pressuring Government to revise enrolment numbers into nursing schools have proposed meeting their own cost of training. In August last year the Ministry of Health and Childcare directed training institutions to reduce enrolment of student nurses by over 80 percent. Government’s 15 nursing training institutions which admitted about 60 students per intake twice a year, each reduced enrolment to not more than 10 students per intake, sources said.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Childcare, Dr Gerald Gwinji last week confirmed that such a proposal had been tabled and Government was weighing it.
“Nursing is a popular profession and many seek to join it. As such suggestions were made by some of those aspiring to join this noble profession for us to consider training them at their own cost. These have remained as suggestions which we gave our ear to but we have not adopted this approach. Organisations continuously review their strategies to remain relevant and efficient,” he said.
Dr Gwinji said the move to reduce the number of students enrolled into nursing school was part of the many strategies to contain Government expenditure as well as deal with the swelling number of trained nurses who cannot be employed.
The health secretary, however, dismissed as false reports that Government was also considering cutting or scrapping student nurses’ allowances in a bid to reduce expenditure.
“The current official policy or model for nurse training in our public institutions remain that of treating our trainee nurses as employees in training. Thus they are paid a salary. This is so because from very early on in training they already provide a service as a critical component of the team. Other countries use different models including paying for training.”
Meanwhile, the Health Service Board (HSB) says it is yet to get clearance from Treasury to start recruiting, almost two years after Government lifted the ban on recruitment of health personnel. Government lifted the ban on recruitment of nurses in August 2013, with 630 posts declared vacant in the health sector.
HSB public relations executive Mr Nyasha Maravanyika said the board will continue replacement of nurses who would have resigned, retired, died or might have been dismissed from work for various reasons.
“We are still waiting for Treasury to give us the green light to start filling those posts. What we have been doing is working on replacement for those who would have left the service for various reasons. The rate of replacement remains slow and the figure that we have recruited so far since last year is insignificant. The process will continue until we get clearance from treasury to fill those posts that were declared vacant,” he said. More than 2 800 qualified nurses are jobless after Government imposed a freeze on recruitment of nurses.
