Critical staff shortage hits Norton polyclinic

A CRITICAL staff shortage has hit St Padre Pio Polyclinic in Norton, which is operating with only 10 staff members out of a required complement of 41.

The shortage is seriously affecting health delivery.

St Padre Pio Polyclinic Sister-inCharge Mrs Esther Mudhovozi said while the administration at the clinic appreciated the efforts by the Government to beef up staff at the clinic, there is still a huge requirement for a clinic that has a catchment of 21 000 people.

Currently, there are four midwives (two seconded by the district and two by the responsible authority), four registered general nurses, one primary care nurse seconded from the district and one primary care counsellor.

“Our catchment population breakdown has a target of 21 000 and the targeted staff establishment that will enable the clinic to run at any given time includes two sisters-in-charge, two medical doctors, eight midwives, eight registered general nurses, one administrator, three clerks, three ambulance technicians, two primary counsellors, five nurse aides three general hands, four security guards and two cooks.

“We are grateful for the support we are getting from the Ministry of Health and Child Care through the district and the province. They have sacrificed some health facilities in order to ensure that we have such a number of staff. At the present moment, we do not have midwives, non-midwives are covering a shift alone.

“However, we make sure that night duty is covered by a midwife always.

“We often hire a locum midwife to complement our staff. We do not have any nurse aides, therefore we depend on two volunteers from the church and we are grateful to our staff for stretching to cover some of the nurse aide duties,’’ she said.