Gweru City faces nurses crisis

GWERU City Council is desperately short of nursing staff having 31 vacant positions for nurses at its clinics, which imposes both a strain on normal health services and has created delays in accelerating the vaccination programme in the city.

Council clinics each serve about 50 people a day and in some cases those wanting to be vaccinated are being turned away as the available nurses are already overwhelmed on treatment, and a team cannot be spared to give the jabs.

The local authority runs eight clinics: Senga, Mkoba Polyclinic, Mkoba 1, Totonga, Child Welfare, Mtapa Clinic, Ivene and New Life Centre.

In an interview yesterday, Gweru City Council spokesperson Ms Vimbai Chingwaramusee said since June last year, council has lost 14 nurses due to resignations, retirements and deaths, making what was already a serious staff shortage even worse.

Those who resigned left for greener pastures.

“As Gweru City Council, between last year and this year, we have nine resignations, four retirements and one death,” she said.

“So at the moment GCC has a shortage of 31 nurses from our current compliment. We currently have 65 nurses and we need to recruit more to ensure that we curb the spread of Covid-19 and other pandemics such as HIV and Aids and TB.

Council has been engaging locum nurses to cover for shortages.

“Yes, I have been moving around our clinics and I was told that at times our nurses are overwhelmed because of people who want to be vaccinated. Remember we are administering the Covid-19 vaccines and at times people come in numbers. We have told our nurses that everyone must be vaccinated. Our clinics deal with over 50 people a day and it can be quite straining; worse we have shortages of nurses”, she said.

Residents have said the shortage of health workers is dampening the mass vaccination drive in Gweru as centres are being overwhelmed resulting in some residents being turned away.

Gweru has recorded 77 Covid-19 deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic last year.

According to the Midlands province Covid-19 update, 74 people succumbed to the virus in Kwekwe, Gokwe South (36), Zvishavane (17), Shurugwi (12), Chirumanzu (8), and Mberengwa (1).

“A total of 225 people have succumbed to Covid-19 in the Midlands province. Active cases are 1415, and 4765 recoveries,” reads part of the provincial Covid-19 update.

Gokwe South, Gweru, Kwekwe, Zvishavane are the Covid-19 hotspots in the province.