News / Local
Brain drain hits Mater Dei Hospital
18 Jun 2022 at 07:29hrs | Views
MATER DEI Hospital in Bulawayo has been experiencing massive brain drain despite its efforts to equip its workers with various health response skills.
This was revealed by one of the senior nurses Florence Zulu in an interview with Southern Eye yesterday.
She said the hospital had lost experienced senior nurses after most of them were groomed by the health institution under its staff training drive that started in 2015.
"Nurse attrition from 2015 total number is 97. Every time we lose good nurses, we will be left with junior nurses which gives us a hard time because they relocate for greener pastures. In 2015, we had four who resigned, 2016 we had three, 2017 we had 13, 2018 we had 12, 2019 we had 15, 2020 we had 13, 2021 we had 20 and in 2022, so far we have 17. So the statistics show that we have lost many nurses at this hospital," Zulu said.
"For both intensive care nurse training and operating theatre nurses training, we managed to recruit about 74 nurses not mentioning statistics for other trainings done because they need time as the information is not readily available ."
She said their second project was to allow the elderly to get treated at subsidised costs.
"There is a community programme on cataract extraction and people pay subsided fees. Two doctors select patients. We have a theatre for cataract extraction," Zulu said.
She said doctors were the ones who write a report to the hospital recommending the operation of the elderly from vulnerable families.
Another health official at the hospital, Sister Maureen Jameson, said the institution had embarked on three projects meant to benefit the community.
"We have three community projects. First, we have the training school programme as a hospital. We have a cataract extraction programme as well as the vaccination programme," she said.
Mater Dei Hospital senior tutor and nurse educator, Sister Sukoluhle Sjamboko said: "We started small and we were teaching our nurses on how they should look after their patients, patient care and we noticed that we can expand."
Sjamboko said Mater Dei was the first hospital to come up with an advanced trauma care course in the whole of Africa.
"We were even training people from Uganda, South Africa, America and all over when we started the course and they supported us. We are training hospitals, but the problem is getting people to come and see how it's done," she said.
Sjamboko said the programme was once tried in Nigeria, but it failed.
"The trauma course was once tried in Nigeria, but it didn't succeed and it only succeeded here in Zimbabwe, not in Harare, but in Bulawayo at Mater Dei, where they are training advanced trauma care for nurses and doctors course," she said.
This was revealed by one of the senior nurses Florence Zulu in an interview with Southern Eye yesterday.
She said the hospital had lost experienced senior nurses after most of them were groomed by the health institution under its staff training drive that started in 2015.
"Nurse attrition from 2015 total number is 97. Every time we lose good nurses, we will be left with junior nurses which gives us a hard time because they relocate for greener pastures. In 2015, we had four who resigned, 2016 we had three, 2017 we had 13, 2018 we had 12, 2019 we had 15, 2020 we had 13, 2021 we had 20 and in 2022, so far we have 17. So the statistics show that we have lost many nurses at this hospital," Zulu said.
"For both intensive care nurse training and operating theatre nurses training, we managed to recruit about 74 nurses not mentioning statistics for other trainings done because they need time as the information is not readily available ."
She said their second project was to allow the elderly to get treated at subsidised costs.
"There is a community programme on cataract extraction and people pay subsided fees. Two doctors select patients. We have a theatre for cataract extraction," Zulu said.
Another health official at the hospital, Sister Maureen Jameson, said the institution had embarked on three projects meant to benefit the community.
"We have three community projects. First, we have the training school programme as a hospital. We have a cataract extraction programme as well as the vaccination programme," she said.
Mater Dei Hospital senior tutor and nurse educator, Sister Sukoluhle Sjamboko said: "We started small and we were teaching our nurses on how they should look after their patients, patient care and we noticed that we can expand."
Sjamboko said Mater Dei was the first hospital to come up with an advanced trauma care course in the whole of Africa.
"We were even training people from Uganda, South Africa, America and all over when we started the course and they supported us. We are training hospitals, but the problem is getting people to come and see how it's done," she said.
Sjamboko said the programme was once tried in Nigeria, but it failed.
"The trauma course was once tried in Nigeria, but it didn't succeed and it only succeeded here in Zimbabwe, not in Harare, but in Bulawayo at Mater Dei, where they are training advanced trauma care for nurses and doctors course," she said.
Source - newsday
