Inadequate human resource affects health service delivery, says Dr Mac

Inadequate human resource affects health service delivery, says Dr Mac
By Masuzyo Chakwe
Wednesday May 14, 2008 [04:01]

INADEQUATE human resource and requisites have remained a major crisis in the health sector, Zambia Medical Association (ZMA) president Dr Swebby Macha yesterday said.

Commenting on the International Nurses Day, which fell on Monday under the theme 'Delivering quality, service communities: Nursing leading primary health care', Dr Macha said the shortage of nurses and inadequate requisites had made it difficult for nurses and health workers in general to perform to the expected standards.

He said human resource was the cornerstone of any health system in the world."We need to retain health workers by offering them better conditions of service. We have a high migration of health workers going to countries like Britain that offer better conditions of service," he said.

However, Dr Macha said there was a slight improvement in terms of requisites even though it was not satisfactory.

"We have an improvement in terms of drug supply; like at UTH University Teaching Hospital there is some improvement in drug supply and equipment use in patients even though it is not satisfactory. It is the manpower crisis that is getting nurses overworked. We have one nurse attending to 50 patients instead of the standard one to 10 patients," Dr Macha said.

He said the perception of inefficiency was as a result of the high-patient load because of the high disease burden of malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

Dr Macha said nurses were working under difficult conditions and as an association, they would continue calling for improvement of their conditions of service.
Zambia Union of Nurses Organisation (ZUNO) president Thom Yung'ana on Monday said it was unfortunate that the requisites for nurses in the country were always inadequate.

He said inadequate requisites had given an implication to the public that the nurse in Zambia was inefficient.

He said this situation would continue to haunt Zambia as long as it was not given the necessary attention it required.

"I therefore challenge the authorities that be to challenge us, nurses, by equipping us with the necessary requisites and see if we will not be able to give out what humanity deserves and expects from a nurse," he said.

Health minister Dr Brian Chituwo said Zambia at present only had about 10,000 nurses countrywide against the requirement of about 22,000.
He said the shortage of nurses on a daily basis negatively impacts on the quality of care.
He said long waiting hours led to dissatisfaction of clients, self-medication and complications of diseases.

Dr Chituwo said to address the issue of shortage of human resource in the health sector, the ministry was implementing a strategic plan on human resource for health.
Ministry of Health spokesperson, Dr Canicius Banda said with the successful implementation of the human resource strategic plan, the human resource crisis in the health sector should be over in the next five to 10 years.

He said though the country required 51,414 health workers, there were currently 30,883.
Dr Banda said following the granting of treasury authority by the Ministry of Finance, the Public Service Management Division gave the Ministry of Health authority to employ 5,263 health workers as new creations and retain 25,625 health workers already in the approved establishment.

Dr Banda said last year, the Zambia Health Workers Retention Scheme, which was piloted on medical doctors, was expanded to other health workers.