Opinion / Columnist
'Dunderhead' Chiwenga asking WHO to stem nurse haemorrhage - Wasting time treating symptom, treat the Mafiosi disease
07 Mar 2023 at 18:00hrs | Views
Zimbabwe's VP and Minister of Health, Dr Constantino Chiwenga ask the World Health Organisation (WHO) to help stem the haemorrhage of Zimbabwe health care workers.
"One of the problems we discussed is workforce. For the health system to be strong you need to have workforce in terms of number and in terms of quality, but Zimbabwe is worried that many high income countries are taking its doctors and nurses and the country is now facing shortages locally," revealed WHO director-general Dr Ghebreyesus after his meeting with VP Chiwenga.
"He (VP Chiwenga) asked if WHO could really help to address this issue. Of course, there are two things we can do. One there is a code of conduct so those countries poaching health workers from low-income countries should follow the code of conduct.
"The second strategic solution is to train more since the problem is supply and demand mismatch. There are models now we have been considering in WHO that can help, that is increasing the enrolment significantly so that it can address the shortages that we are facing, so it is a combination of short and long term."
This is a waste of time! It is not just nurses and doctors who are leaving the country in droves; teachers, engineers, etc. are doing the same. And they are leaving for high income nations as well as low income nations just to escape the slave-wages offered in Zimbabwe!
Zimbabwe is a failed state, a pariah state, whose economy has all but collapsed. The ruling elite and their cronies have sucked the life blood out of the economy to feed their insatiable appetite for wealth and luxuries, they have become filthy rich at the expense of the millions condemned to poverty and despair. Many of the people who can leave the country have left just to escape a life of abject poverty.
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown means there is very little revenue for the government to pay the bloated civil service, equally bloated Army, Police and CIO and so education, health and other social welfare services have been thrown overboard in fight to contain inflation.
The nurses and teachers have been fighting for a living wage for donkey years with no progress. None! Their wages are so poor many cannot afford the transport to go to work every day and so have resorted to work reduced days.
It is nonsensical to mourn of brain drain when the government is failing to make full use of the reduced manpower still in the country because it will not pay them to work a full week.
The haemorrhaging of skilled workers out of the country is the symptom and not the disease. The disease is the country's economic meltdown which is forced the people to leave or suffer in dumb anguish. And the economic meltdown is itself the consequence of four decades of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and lawlessness under this Mafiosi Zanu PF dictatorship.
Ordinarily the nation would have removed the regime ages ago if the country was a healthy and functioning democracy. It is not!
Zanu PF has rigged elections starting with the 1980 elections when it made it clear the bush war would continue if the party lost. The party is rigging these 2023 election and thus confirming the country's status as a pariah state, a failed Mafiosi dictatorship. There is no hope of economic revival because no one would want to do business in a failed and chaotic state.
Increasing the number of trained staff will not solve anything if the individuals will leave as soon as they complete their training. With nurses being paid US$100 p m way below the US$650 p m poverty datum line. Who would want these starvation wages.
Besides, Zimbabwe's days as the source of skilled manpower are numbered. The flight of skilled staff has resulted in the quality of education dropping through the floor. It is common to schools posting 0% pass rates and "O" students who don't know what a verb is! Zimbabwe is moving from exported skilled manpower to exporting dunderheads!
Of course, it is a waste of time trying to stem the haemorrhage of skilled manpower, the symptom, out of Zimbabwe without first dealing with its root cause the failed state, the disease. Of all people WHO should know treating the symptom and not the disease is a waste of time, resources and, worst of all, of human lives!
UN has turned a blind eye to Zimbabwe's failure to hold free and fair elections all because China and Russia have always vetoed all attempts to censure Zanu PF human rights violations. It is to be expected given these two nations are themselves notorious for human rights violations including failure to hold free and fair elections, if they still bother. The UN and its subsidiary bodies including WHO are heavily compromised and ineffective to the point of treating symptoms and not the disease.
What we in Zimbabwe is to tell our "dunderhead" VP and Minister of Health, Chiwenga, and his Zanu PF cronies that they cannot have the cake and eat it too. As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote-rigging thugs, there will be no meaningful economic recovery and Zimbabweans will continue to leave the country to escape abject poverty. The problem is not the people leaving the country, it is those forcing them to leave - the corrupt and vote rigging Zanu PF Mafiosi.
"One of the problems we discussed is workforce. For the health system to be strong you need to have workforce in terms of number and in terms of quality, but Zimbabwe is worried that many high income countries are taking its doctors and nurses and the country is now facing shortages locally," revealed WHO director-general Dr Ghebreyesus after his meeting with VP Chiwenga.
"He (VP Chiwenga) asked if WHO could really help to address this issue. Of course, there are two things we can do. One there is a code of conduct so those countries poaching health workers from low-income countries should follow the code of conduct.
"The second strategic solution is to train more since the problem is supply and demand mismatch. There are models now we have been considering in WHO that can help, that is increasing the enrolment significantly so that it can address the shortages that we are facing, so it is a combination of short and long term."
This is a waste of time! It is not just nurses and doctors who are leaving the country in droves; teachers, engineers, etc. are doing the same. And they are leaving for high income nations as well as low income nations just to escape the slave-wages offered in Zimbabwe!
Zimbabwe is a failed state, a pariah state, whose economy has all but collapsed. The ruling elite and their cronies have sucked the life blood out of the economy to feed their insatiable appetite for wealth and luxuries, they have become filthy rich at the expense of the millions condemned to poverty and despair. Many of the people who can leave the country have left just to escape a life of abject poverty.
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown means there is very little revenue for the government to pay the bloated civil service, equally bloated Army, Police and CIO and so education, health and other social welfare services have been thrown overboard in fight to contain inflation.
The nurses and teachers have been fighting for a living wage for donkey years with no progress. None! Their wages are so poor many cannot afford the transport to go to work every day and so have resorted to work reduced days.
The haemorrhaging of skilled workers out of the country is the symptom and not the disease. The disease is the country's economic meltdown which is forced the people to leave or suffer in dumb anguish. And the economic meltdown is itself the consequence of four decades of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and lawlessness under this Mafiosi Zanu PF dictatorship.
Ordinarily the nation would have removed the regime ages ago if the country was a healthy and functioning democracy. It is not!
Zanu PF has rigged elections starting with the 1980 elections when it made it clear the bush war would continue if the party lost. The party is rigging these 2023 election and thus confirming the country's status as a pariah state, a failed Mafiosi dictatorship. There is no hope of economic revival because no one would want to do business in a failed and chaotic state.
Increasing the number of trained staff will not solve anything if the individuals will leave as soon as they complete their training. With nurses being paid US$100 p m way below the US$650 p m poverty datum line. Who would want these starvation wages.
Besides, Zimbabwe's days as the source of skilled manpower are numbered. The flight of skilled staff has resulted in the quality of education dropping through the floor. It is common to schools posting 0% pass rates and "O" students who don't know what a verb is! Zimbabwe is moving from exported skilled manpower to exporting dunderheads!
Of course, it is a waste of time trying to stem the haemorrhage of skilled manpower, the symptom, out of Zimbabwe without first dealing with its root cause the failed state, the disease. Of all people WHO should know treating the symptom and not the disease is a waste of time, resources and, worst of all, of human lives!
UN has turned a blind eye to Zimbabwe's failure to hold free and fair elections all because China and Russia have always vetoed all attempts to censure Zanu PF human rights violations. It is to be expected given these two nations are themselves notorious for human rights violations including failure to hold free and fair elections, if they still bother. The UN and its subsidiary bodies including WHO are heavily compromised and ineffective to the point of treating symptoms and not the disease.
What we in Zimbabwe is to tell our "dunderhead" VP and Minister of Health, Chiwenga, and his Zanu PF cronies that they cannot have the cake and eat it too. As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote-rigging thugs, there will be no meaningful economic recovery and Zimbabweans will continue to leave the country to escape abject poverty. The problem is not the people leaving the country, it is those forcing them to leave - the corrupt and vote rigging Zanu PF Mafiosi.
Source - zimbabwelight.spotlight.com
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