The Government is still searching for about 20, 000 employees in the Ministry of Health to fill up vacancies created by the 2005 strategic plan that established 51, 414 positions.
Health Minister Kapembwa Simbao said in Lusaka yesterday that only 30,883 positions had so far been taken up.
He said the Government was determined to employing adequate manpower to improve healthcare.
Mr Simbao said this during the handover of a newly-constructed 100-seater lecture room at the Chainama College of Heath Sciences in Lusaka.
The new lecture room was funded by the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
The ceremony was attended by officials from the Clinton Health Access Initiative, academic staff and students.
Mr Simbao hailed the partnership between Chainama College and the Clinton Health Services Initiative.
He said in a speech read for him by his deputy Christopher Kalila that the Government had embarked on a programme to build health facilities countrywide to improve access to health services and called for safeguards to stop vandals and loss of equipment.
The minister said while the Government had continued building more health facilities, there was still a shortage of skilled human resource.
“This crisis is one major obstacle to attaining the millennium development goals by the year 2015 and Government’s desire is to have skilled health care providers at every level of health care,” Mr Simbao said.
He said the Government recognised the important role Chainama College had in the provision of health services by training health personnel who were deployed in various parts of the country.
He, however, said despite the role the college was playing, the institution had faced a critical shortage of infrastructure to improve its capacity to accommodate more students.
To address the challenge, management had engaged day scholars in the fields of environmental health and technology.
[Times of Zambia]
They are all in the diaspora…due to your useless policies ba Minister…improve the conditions of service and provide a level playing field for all to have a share of the national cake and you see thm come back. you know some of them just work as B.U.T.T whipers for aged bazunguz…
2011 si vinthu indeed, we are going to be seeing a lot of employment oppotunities, ama development projects and so on so forth..every ministry is in a hurrry to work now that it is Elections…fellow Zambians these people are in a hurry to develop our country only this year…and i ask my self where have they been all these years?! ba Minister 2005 panka lelo?!
SATA the Change we need!!!!
This chap’s campaign strategies alarm the people.when is he employing people? people want employment but he just bits about the bush,the other day the brat was booed at UTH because of his useless campaigns. Useless cadre.
what happened to the k100 million loans promised to nurses during the “uniform distribution ceremony” at UTH by our health Minister? Is there any single nurse with a testmony to share with us?
#4 Dabwiso,
There is none my friend it was all a bunch of political gobbledygook!!!
PABWATOOOO FOR LIFE!!!!
all teachers and health workers will be employed by govt. private schools and clinics are facing a serious worker turnover bcos they cannot keep workers who are trekking back to government enmasse. simbao go ahead and award jobs to these cadres and shame sata and his tandem of illiterates
#6 SHAZZA,
you know opinions are formed in a process of open discussion and public debate, and where no opportunity for the forming of opinions exists, there may be moods — moods of the masses and moods of individuals, the latter no less fickle and unreliable than the former — but no opinion–well i guess you are entitled to one (opinion) but do not let it be fashioned out of spite and blind following.
SATA FOR PRESIDENT!!!
Dont waste your time employing more workers when you cant even pay decent salaries to a few that you have. People need proper salaries not what you are saying. There are alot of Zambian health workers abroad just improve the salaries and they will be back.
#6 i think you are misinformed at least about private clinic. there is no major shift of human resource from the fragile private sector in health to gov. i should also say if more teachers in the private schools are going back to gov jobs its yet another bad sign for the nation. gov need to instead encourage people to go in the private sector. in so doing it reduces is expenditure on salaries and diverts that money to educational infrastructural development. remember that gov is a consumer not a producer therefore the bigger it is the bigger its expenditure.
so if what you are describing is true then we are in sh.it
#6 there may have been a trickling back to GRZ by teachers, but it certainly has not been a trekking back enmasse! I was just wondering where the minister will find the 20, 000 health workers… Uh, uh, I’ve got it! Let’s try China. Yes, why not ask them to send us doctors and nurses and pharmacists, etc, etc.
Minister, pay doctors, nurses, all paramedical and supporting staff right salaries and you will be overwhelmed by responses to your urgent need of more staff. The bloody money you spent on ‘white elephant’ mobile hospitals could have been used to at least construct a few clinics in the country side. The problem you have as government is that you act before you think! Better for yourselves and slave salaries for your medics!
can smeone give me the address to the ministry of health i would like to apply for a job. if possible ka e mail address
#12 Just remain in the diaspora sivintu mu govt. Slave wages every time they will tell you to tighten your belts while they are loosening theirs.Ni bopusa maningi bamambala ba MMD govt.
Why didnt you employ them earlier what were you waiting for
#14 waiting for elections, or is it erections as some bloggers call them!!!
Erection fever. Awe mwandini twalachula.On the paper there are jobs , when you go to apply they say no vakansizi .When you pay akakumbali they give a job but no pay.
Nga wafola niwe wine ukulipila tax ya 35% ,PAYE .Kung’anda ama renti lizandafye.You need to look at how much a needle costs outside so you can organize one for a qick indalama olo else you will not manage a life.Povati is a talk of a minute.It is part of us fwe ma votazi.
#11 that is where you are wrong. there is more to it than just paying good salaries. untill 3 months ago zambian doctors where getting about the same money and in some case a little more than state doctors in namibia. that led to exodus of zambia doctors from namibia, bostwant back to zambia. the answer is not as easy has you put it or at least it not just about the monthend pay
Getting back these health workers back to zambia is somwhow tricky. The south African Nurses have been encouraged to go back because the salaries offered to their nurses as at now is more or less the same as what a nurse gets in the UK. A salary for a nurse in the government sector in the UK, gets round about £1400, that is just the usual shift without any extra work, and them nurses who have gone back to RSA are being paid the same amount, may be even more depending on experience. Now coming to the Zambian govt, would they pay a nurse such an amount equivalent to a Kwacha? which is 10.5 million. If the answer is yes, I believe many nurses who are in these outside countries would want to get back home and work there. To be honest its not easy to live outside for those that are out there,
#18 you are right life out there is difficult. the difficulty is whether zambia can afford to pay these salaries. i will tell you the gov cannot afford to pay 10 million kwacha to nurses but definately increasing there salaries a little may not harm the gov too much.. but there are also other affordable ways for instances
1. Gov as an employer should guarantee loan which nurse can get from banks,there should include house loans, personal loan, motor vehicle loan etc according to the salary scales
2.encourage a stronger private sector in health care where nurses can be employed either as full time or part ie they can work for both the state on the private
Waal !! Ulendo lwamoneka, we are going home, Bring it on we are here to help.