Zim’s health delivery system on deathbed

tors, some as old as 75, have been called back by the quasi-government body, the Health Services Board, to fill thousands of posts at dilapidated public healthcare centres across the country reeling from acute staff shortages. The retirement age for medical personnel in Zimbabwe is 65 but government last week announced it was recalling all retired staff to fill the void.
The total recall of retired health professionals comes as unrest at government hospitals reaches fever pitch with nurses threatening to join a strike by junior doctors that entered it’s third week this Monday. The industrial action over salary hikes and car loans has forced the health delivery system to a grinding halt. Thousands of patients were being turned away at Parirenyatwa and Harare Hospitals and similar scenes of chaos were reported at state hospitals in Bulawayo. “As long as they (retired doctors and nurses) feel they are still able to work, we would not mind having them back in service,”an apparently desperate Health Services Board acting chairperson Joyce Kadandara told shocked business executives at a fundraising event of Chitungwiza Central Hospital last Friday.
Dr Kudakwashe Nyamutukwa, president of the Hospital Doctors Association, told The Zimbabwean medical staff were going abroad”to earn enough money to live on.” “The current gross salary of Z$57 million (for a junior doctor) is not in line with the stature and nobility of this profession,” Dr Nyamukutwa said, adding medical professionals such as doctors who envisioned lives of”modest prosperity”for their families are finding themselves struggling to cover their bills. The Zimbabwean heard that Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo has only three staff obstetricians who deliver more than 11,000 babies a year. The other two are on loan from Cuba, and go home for several weeks each year. The hospital should have at least six obstetricians. Mpilo handles many of the most difficult cases in the region but is currently operating with just one general surgeon instead of three to serve its 1,037 beds.