Zim’s health sector is bleeding nurses
Harare – Virginia Mutsamwira says she treats four times the number of patients she should ideally handle at a township clinic in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.
“It’s tiring, the nurse-patient ratio is really bad,” she said, throwing herself onto a brown sofa at her house in Cold Comfort township after a 12-hour shift.
“It’s frustrating because you can’t offer quality care.”
The 52-year-old senior nurse is skilled, experienced and educated. Yet her monthly salary of $200 (about R3 247) barely covers basics.
To make ends meet for her family of eight, she runs a small grocery shop from her home, where she also rears chickens and rabbits for sale. After work, before she even takes off her blue uniform, she feeds the chickens.
She is joining the exodus of healthcare workers emigrating from Zimbabwe, in her case “to secure my retirement”.
Official figures show that last year alone, Zimbabwe lost nearly 1 800 nurses, mainly to Britain. That’s more than 10% of all the nurses working in public hospitals.
Mutsamwira has already done her international English language test, required to get a visa to the United Kingdom, where salaries are around 10 times higher than in Zimbabwe.
The outflow of nursing staff is stripping the country of desperately needed skills.
“We are always overwhelmed because nurses are leaving,” said Josephine Marare, 33, who works at one of the country’s largest public hospitals, Sally Mugabe Central Hospital.
Underequipped facilities only worsen morale. “Imagine working in a hospital where there are no bandages, no water, no basic drugs like painkillers,” she said.
“I am just so frustrated. If I get money to get a visa, I will join the others who are leaving.”
The migration has spurred demand for passports, with people queueing up from before dawn to apply for travel documents in Harare.
Zimbabwe’s healthcare facilities have been crumbling for more than a decade, tracking the downward spiral of the economy.
“The main driving factor is poor remuneration,” said Simbarashe Tafirenyika, president of the Zimbabwe Urban and Rural Council Nurses Workers Union, of the nurses’ exodus. “If anyone gets an opportunity, they go.”
It’s so desperate that many highly qualified nurses opt for junior roles abroad because these pay better.
The Health Service Board,
which grades and appoints government health workers, admits the mass exodus of nurses has had an effect. Under a programme aimed at filling staffing gaps, retired nurses are being rehired, while training is being expanded.
“Losing experienced workers is always a challenge,” spokesperson Livingstone Mashange said.
The board’s website opens with a picture of smiling nurses leaping joyfully and a bold “we are hiring” message.
Like other rich countries, Britain has a long tradition of recruiting staff from developing countries to meet the needs of its health service. But shortages in the UK have shot up, driven by the Covid pandemic and a dramatic drop in nurses recruited from eastern Europe as a result of Brexit.
According a report last June by the Health Foundation thinktank, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) faced a shortfall of 93 000 staff. About 42% of them were nurses.
Jason Mutambara, a 45-yearold Zimbabwean father of four, migrated to Britain last year. He says he has no regrets. His monthly income rocketed to £2 700 (about R54 817). “It was like you’ve just won a lottery,” he said. “You can’t even think of coming back.”
Mutambara’s hope is that the Zimbabwean authorities fix the health system to stop the haemorrhage of skills.
“We were trained in Zimbabwe and we owe it to the people of Zimbabwe to continue working for them,” he said. But for now, it appears Britain will be hiring for years to come. –