News / Health
Govt to train few nurses
05 Jul 2015 at 06:31hrs | Views
THE Government is drastically trimming enrolment of student nurses by over 80 percent.
Government's 15 training institutions on average admitted about 60 students per intake twice a year, but they have since been ordered to admit not more than 10 students per intake.
The order comes into effect from September when the nursing schools have their next intake.
This is due to lack of funds as well as meant to contain the swelling number of unemployed qualified nurses.
"We have been told not to enrol more than 10 students because of lack of resources. The main reason is that Government cannot continue to train nurses who will be jobless at the end of the day. We cannot continue to train people so that they sit at home. So the idea is to train a few, while modalities on absorbing the jobless ones are worked on," said a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The communication we got from head office is that qualified nurses who have not been practising for the past three years will also need to undergo training before they are employed. The assumption is that the nurses would have lost most of the skills due to redundancy".
Health Services Board public relations executive Nyasha Maravanyika could neither confirm nor deny the latest developments on reduction of student nurse enrolment, referring the matter to the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Gerald Gwinji.
"That is an administrative issue which is dealt with by the Ministry of Health and Child Care. I suggest you contact the permanent secretary, he will be the best person to give you an answer on those issues."
Government's 15 training institutions on average admitted about 60 students per intake twice a year, but they have since been ordered to admit not more than 10 students per intake.
The order comes into effect from September when the nursing schools have their next intake.
This is due to lack of funds as well as meant to contain the swelling number of unemployed qualified nurses.
"We have been told not to enrol more than 10 students because of lack of resources. The main reason is that Government cannot continue to train nurses who will be jobless at the end of the day. We cannot continue to train people so that they sit at home. So the idea is to train a few, while modalities on absorbing the jobless ones are worked on," said a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The communication we got from head office is that qualified nurses who have not been practising for the past three years will also need to undergo training before they are employed. The assumption is that the nurses would have lost most of the skills due to redundancy".
Health Services Board public relations executive Nyasha Maravanyika could neither confirm nor deny the latest developments on reduction of student nurse enrolment, referring the matter to the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Gerald Gwinji.
"That is an administrative issue which is dealt with by the Ministry of Health and Child Care. I suggest you contact the permanent secretary, he will be the best person to give you an answer on those issues."
Source - Byo24News
