ZIMBABWE faces a critical shortage of training infrastructure, particularly accommodation for student nurses and other healthcare trainees.
Healthy deputy minister Sleiman Kwidini said this while responding to questions from legislators during a question-and-answer session in Parliament.
Kwidini said the country’s health sector was facing a dual challenge of a crippling nurse exodus and inadequate training facilities.
“The current lack of sufficient hospital facilities and practical training environments is hindering the ability to produce qualified healthcare professionals,” he said.
“It is true that we are losing a lot of money through training nurses who end up migrating to other countries despite being bonded.”
Experienced nurses are quitting their jobs en masse protesting poor working conditions and salaries.
The majority have been moving to the United Kingdom, with statistics indicating that over 3 000 nurses have left in recent years.
The mass exodus has seen some public hospitals being manned by inexperienced nurses, putting the health of patients at risk.
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This is further worsened by a shortage of basic medicines due to years of underfunding to the health sector.
Kwidini said the ministry was facing challenges in filling vacant nursing posts.
“As the responsible ministry, we desire that we have a lot of students taking up nurse training. It is true, we have provincial hospitals unfortunately, student nurses do not have accommodation,” he said.
“As a ministry, after noting that for a student nurse to perform well, they need proper and secure accommodation where they do not face challenges.
“We want to look into the issue, whether it is the provincial hospital, district hospital or other hospitals. We want to make sure we have proper facilities.”
Kwidini also said there was a critical shortage of radiographers, laboratory scientists, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals.
“For them to be trained, we need proper facilities because some lessons are done in the evening and others are done during the day,” he said.
“If there is no proper accommodation at the hospital, we cannot have people training at that centre.”
Kwidini said having nurse training at some tertiary institutions was not the solution because they would not get practical experience at such institutions.
“So, if we churn out more graduates like what happens at universities and colleges, then they will not be absorbed into public hospitals and they will not be able to get practical experience,” he said.
“By so doing, we are going to compromise our standards because we will be having a lot of people with nursing diplomas, but without practical experience.”
