Nurses deserve public support, respect
By The Post
Tue 17 May 2011, 04:00 CAT
THE observations made by Besa Chimbaka, the Minister for Luapula Province, about the shortage of nurses in the country being a constraint and barrier to our people’s access to quality health services should attract the attention of everyone in government and civil society.
It cannot be denied that there is a serious shortage of nurses in our country and this has serious consequences on the provision of health services in our country.
A shortage of nurses leads to long queues at clinics and hospitals, long waiting periods before patients can be attended to. This leads to the slowing down of procedures at clinics and hospitals and increase adverse events for patients and more stressful work environment.
As the shortage of nurses increases, there is increased pressure on our health system to start depending on unqualified and unregulated health workers to meet demands for basic nursing care within clinics and hospitals.
We agree with Chimbaka that nursing is a noble profession and that in every country, nurses were a principal group of people promoting the respect for individual human rights among other issues.
One cannot claim to have respect for human rights or to uphold the sanctity of life if there is no provision for minimum health care for all. And there is no future development without healthy citizens. It is said that caring for the sick is a calling from God of a special dignity and importance, not just another job.
Truly, this is so because health care is really an imitation of Jesus, who saw healing the sick as central to his ministry of establishing the Kingdom of God. We may not be able to cure miraculously our sick sisters and brothers around us but we can share the charity of tender hands and also promote the justice of good health policies and adequate medicines.
But we disagree with Chimbaka when he says that the shortage of nurses in the country is the reason why the government is providing mobile hospitals. This is nonsense. It doesn’t make sense. He is not telling the truth and he is talking about an issue whose origins he probably doesn’t even understand.
This corrupt scheme of mobile hospitals can never address the shortage of nurses and was not in any way meant to deal with that problem, to be a remedy for it. It was simply a project that was meant to enrich some individuals. This is a subject of another editorial comment.
What is true, what is correct, in what Chimbaka said is that nurses play a very important role in the provision of health care to our people and also that some major gaps still exist in the delivery of health services to our people. In this regard, Chimbaka’s observations are correct and true.
A nurse is a healthcare professional who, in collaboration with other members of a healthcare team, is responsible for: treatment, safety and recovery of acutely or chronically ill individuals; health promotion and maintenance within families, communities and populations; and, treatment of life threatening emergencies in a wide-range healthcare setting.
We say this because nurses perform a wide range of clinical and non-clinical functions necessary to the delivery of healthcare. For this reason, if there is a shortage of nurses, a gap, as Chimbaka correctly observed, is created in the delivery of health services.
And where there is a gap as a result of a shortage of nurses, stress sets in among those few nurses and indeed among their patients and their families. This leads to poor relations between the nurses and the patients and indeed their families. We cannot expect an overstretched and stressed nurses to offer good care to their patients.
This leads to anger and frustration in patients and their families. As a result of this, we see nurses being abused, insulted and harassed in all sorts of ways.
Mobile clinics will not address the shortage of nurses because that fleet will move with only a limited number of nurses who have difficulties taking shifts. And they may suffer worse stress than the nurses at fixed hospitals and clinics.
The money being used on these mobile clinics or hospitals would have been better utilised by channelling it to the training of more nurses and improving their conditions of work instead of buying diesel and oil for the trucks.
Moreover, the nurses and other medical staff on these trucks will need to be paid allowances for being away from home. Clearly, this is a senseless undertaking that cannot be justified in any way. And whoever tries to justify it simply ends up making a fool of themselves.
Chimbaka had a very good speech for May 12, the International Nurses Day celebrated around the world since it was instituted in homage to Florence Nightingale, a world nursing symbol born on that day in 1820 in Britain.
Chimbaka said a lot of very good and valuable things, but messed his speech up by trying to sell a corrupt project he has been forced to promote by the appointing authorities who initiated it.
International Nurses Day is a noble day, and Chimbaka should have kept that corrupt scheme of theirs called mobile clinics or hospitals out of it.
That scheme of theirs doesn’t resonate with the deeds and spirit of Nightingale, that outstanding medical official, that British nurse of Italian descent who completely transformed the traditional practice of nursing by introducing qualitative changes in terms of providing healthcare to soldiers, improving sanitation and hygiene and implementing measures that met the needs of patients and helped them provide better quality of life during periods of convalescence.
Recipients and providers of nursing services are viewed as individuals and groups who possess basic rights and responsibilities, and whose values and circumstances should command respect at all times. Nursing encompasses the promotion and restoration of health, the prevention of illness, and the alleviation of suffering.
Clearly, the need for nursing is universal and inherent in nursing is respect for life, dignity and the rights of fellow human beings. Therefore, nurses have to be compassionate people.
For this reason, we urge our nurses to be extremely tolerant and respectful of their patients. We urge them to at all times maintain standards of personal conduct which reflect credit upon their profession.
But let’s not forget that nurses share with all of us the responsibility for initiating and supporting action to meet the health and social needs of the public. This means that when they are mistreated, we should also feel on ourselves their mistreatment; when they protest or demand improved conditions of service, we should be on their side and support their cause.
This is the only way the nurse can reestablish the public’s confidence and get its support and cooperation in the struggle for a better nursing service both in quality of work and conditions of service. The nurses need to get the public on their side. And the public needs to support the nurses so that they can in turn give them a better service.
Labels: BESA CHIMBAKA, NURSES
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Miyanda urges dialogue
By George Chellah
Thu 30 Dec. 2010, 04:01 CAT
DIALOGUE is always better than wielding machetes, warns Brigadier General Godfrey Miyanda. And Brig Gen Miyanda has maintained that President Rupiah Banda’s appointment of Bahati PF member of parliament Besa Chimbaka as Luapula provincial minister was a provocative act and a precursor of violence.
Reacting to chief government spokesperson Lieutenant General Ronnie Shikapwasha’s remarks that his statement on Chimbaka’s appointment was misplaced, Brig Gen Miyanda, who is also Her-itage Party president, stated that Lt Gen Shikapwasha trivialised his comments on the need for the government in general and the President in particular, to lead in creating a conducive political atmosphere devoid of rancour.
“The government spokesman claimed on ZNBC television that my statement regarding the appointment of a PF Member of Parliament (The Post No 5180 of 25th December 2010) was misplaced,” Brig Gen Miyanda stated.
“That retort indicates that the government is not serious about its pronouncements in support of dialogue. Government responses to national issues must graduate from mere propaganda and defensive verbal gymnastics to substance and quality contributions.”
He maintained that President Banda’s act was provocative and a precursor of violence.
“Dialogue is always better than wielding machetes. I again call on the President not to lead in provocative acts. If his motives are genuine, he must ask the sponsoring party to nominate. Why talk secretly to their member? This is called ‘Divide and Rule’ and makes his pronouncements in support of dialogue and peace questionable. Such actions create a chain reaction,” Brig Gen Miyanda stated.
He said when an appointment was made without consulting the sponsoring party, the concerned party began to quarrel with the poachers and ended up suspending or expelling their member resulting in court battles, disharmony and continuous discord in the political arena.
“The Heritage case was cited to show how we lost MPs who were enticed in the same fashion in a scheme manipulated at high levels of the ruling party. How do you build harmony and peace when you habitually plant seeds of discord and display vindictiveness?” said Brig Gen Miyanda.
He stated that President Banda must play the role of unifier which must be evidenced not just by words but by deeds.
Brig Gen Miyanda cited last year when he called on President Banda to be the first courageous President to show that he wasn’t afraid of his shadow by freeing the public media, especially television, so that contending political leaders could be seen together regularly, debating topical issues.
He said this would have helped citizens learn from the leaders so that they may believe that politics was not warfare and that it can be clean.
“This is a challenge that has eluded all our past Presidents. We must tolerate divergent views; we are over ten million people and cannot have the same views even if we tried. How does the government rubbish my non-partisan call for dialogue and fair conduct of political affairs?” Brig Gen Miyanda stated.
He said those that believed they were always right never repent.
“As Christians if we say we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves and must repent. Not repenting means we cannot renew our hearts,” stated Brig Gen Miyanda.
Labels: BESA CHIMBAKA, GODFREY MIYANDA, POLITICAL VIOLENCE
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‘PF rebel MPs met Rupiah’
Written by Patson Chilemba
Friday, April 03, 2009 6:49:39 PM
BAHATI Patriotic Front (PF) member of parliament Besa Chimbaka on Wednesday confirmed that ‘rebel’ parliamentarians met President Rupiah Banda before the elections.
Reacting to PF president Michael Sata’s assertions that he had evidence that President Banda met the ‘rebels’ last year at Government House and they were given K20 million each to campaign for him, Chimbaka said the rebel parliamentarians met the President but declined to disclose what they discussed.
Chimbaka said even Sata did not disclose what he used to discuss with late president Levy Mwanawasa.
He said it was unfortunate that the main opposition leader in the country lied about others.
Chimbaka challenged Sata to justify his claims on the K20 million.
“I have been referred to as having donated a generator. I have received a lot of donations. That generator was donated to me by Amanita Mansa Batteries,” he said.
Chimbaka said Sata was forcing his members of parliament to beg from other people to develop their constituencies because he was very mean.
He said Sata had a lot of money which he received from donors.
“There is no way a party can fail to have bicycles. So he’s forcing us to begin to beg from other people when he has got a lot of money,” Chimbaka said.
Luapula PF member of parliament Peter Machungwa said there was no truth in Sata’s claims.
Machungwa said Sata had brought up the matter because members of parliament participating in the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) had obtained an injunction restraining the party from expelling them.
When contacted for comment, Kawambwa PF ‘rebel’ member of parliament Elizabeth Chitika-Mulobeka responded: “Spare me the comedy.”
PF Lukashya member of parliament Elfreda Mwamba said it would be important to ask those who openly campaigned for President Banda over the K20 million. She said she did not receive the K20 million because she had already made up her mind a long time ago to campaign for Sata and PF.
On Tuesday, Sata said he had ‘former rebel’ members of parliament who were ready to come out on record should President Banda and the rebel parliamentarians deny the assertions.
And reformed Kasama PF member of parliament Saviour Chishimba said President Banda’s government planned to use disgruntled civil society organisations such as those which were vocal on Zambian Airways to ask Chief Justice Ernest Sakala to establish a tribunal against PF members of parliament who were not taking part in the NCC.
“The MMD has mobilised three main known stooges to commence action against us. The purpose is to have us suspended or be completely expelled from Parliament. I will be commencing a court action seeking that declaratory order to ask the court that that clause which requires all members of parliament to be members of NCC is unconstitutional,” said Chishimba. “It’s me to choose whether I want to be part of it or not.”
Labels: BESA CHIMBAKA, MMD, PF, RUPIAH BANDA
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PF stops Chimbaka from donating to Senama Clinic
By Mwala Kalaluka
Thursday October 02, 2008 [04:00]
MANSA Municipal Council and the PF leadership in Luapula Province on Tuesday stopped Bahati PF member of parliament Besa Chimbaka from donating a generator and blankets to Senama Clinic in view of the ongoing presidential campaigns.
And PF provincial chairman Rasford Mwale has asked Chimbaka to resign from the opposition party following his exhibition of tendencies that were not in tune with the party's campaign policies and also his open declaration of support for Vice-President Rupiah Banda during the run-up to the October 30 presidential poll.
Mansa town clerk Bwanga Kapumpa confirmed in an interview yesterday that he advised Chimbaka to wait until the end of the presidential contest before he could make the donation to the clinic.
Kapumpa said his intervention in the matter followed verbal and formal complaints lodged by the PF leadership in the province and in Chimbaka's constituency, Bahati, on the parliamentarian's intentions to make a donation in the midst of presidential campaigns.
"The people from the PF found us working and they first told my officers of the issue before they went to the police," Kapumpa said. "I decided to call Chimbaka by phone and I explained to him what I believe was the appropriate thing to do and that he waits until after the election. But he told me that since he was not one of the presidential candidates in the election he saw nothing wrong with his action."
Kapumpa said he told Chimbaka that although he was not a presidential candidate, a donation in such a sensitive period would still be viewed with suspicion, especially that Chimbaka was currently embroiled in some misunderstandings with his colleagues in the PF.
He said despite his explanation, Chimbaka decided to call Eectoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) director Dan Kalale to find out if there was anything inappropriate with his donation pledge.
"And Kalale also agreed with what I had said to Chimbaka earlier in our discussion," Kapumpa said. "Chimbaka later called me and then he thanked me for having quickly brought to his attention what the law and regulation say during this period and he agreed not to go ahead with his donation."
Kapumpa said he has since written a formal letter to Chimbaka urging him not to proceed with the donation on the basis of a formal complaint lodged by his colleagues in the PF, who deemed the action as highly inappropriate.
And Mwale, who lodged the complaint against Chimbaka before the district electoral officers, together with Bahati Constituency secretary Jewis Chabi, said Chimbaka was a letdown.
Labels: BESA CHIMBAKA, LUAPULA PROVINCE, PF
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PF infighting is recipe for failure, says Chimbaka
By Inonge Noyoo
Saturday August 09, 2008 [04:01]
BAHATI Patriotic Front (PF) member of parliament Besa Chimbaka has said the current confrontations and infighting in the party are a recipe for failure. And Chimbaka has challenged the Task Force on Corruption to give a satisfactory explanation on the criteria they used to arrive at the decision to sell Mansa Milling Company to MMD spokesperson Benny Tetamashimba.
In an interview, Chimbaka observed that it had become clear to any well-meaning voter who supported the PF and its leadership that the party had lost track of its development agenda.
He said the name-calling, bickering, insults and character assassination in the party were at the expense of the party’s development agenda.
“What is the Patriotic Front as a party and its leadership doing about strikes and go slows at our universities? What about the issues of preventing ignorance and diseases? How about the issues of democratic governance in the nation itself?
How much impact has Patriotic Front and its leadership created in the development of Zambia resulting from its policies and development agenda? These are the issues we need to address as a party, not intra-party bickering,” he said.
And Chimbaka urged the Task Force on Corruption not to simply brush aside people’s complainants about the Mansa Milling Company transaction but to offer satisfactory explanation.
“People have a lot of queries regarding this transaction. They want to know whether the Task Force sold Mansa Milling to Tetamashimba because he was MMD. They are also questioning the effectiveness and transparency of the Task Force,” he said.
Chimbaka said the people of Luapula were not only surprised but unhappy with the sale of Mansa Milling Company to Tetamamshimba and there was need for the Task force to give its position.
“People of Mansa, especially the business community, expected Mansa Milling to be sold to management. The people of Mansa were waiting for Task Force to advertise and for people to openly bid but all they heard was that the milling had been sold to Tetamashimba at a cost of K840 million,” he said.
Chimbaka challenged the Task Force on Corruption to produce a list of people who bid for the sale, the offers received and from whom.
“We also want to know how much publicity the whole sale was given because the people feel sidelined by the secret sale of Mansa Milling by the Task Force to Tetamashimba,” he said.
Chimbaka further dismissed Tetamashimba’s claims that he has since invested K1.3 billion in Mansa Milling as false.
“Let him show us which bank and which project he is working on, because it is very clear to see that nothing is being done and Mansa Milling has been closed,” he said.
Chimbaka revealed that he had since written to President Levy Mwanawasa to inform him about the people’s complaints concerning the sale of the company.
Labels: BESA CHIMBAKA, PF
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New tax regime on mining cheers PF MP
By Times Reporter
PATROTIC Front (PF)’s Bahati member of Parliament, Besa Chimbaka, has welcomed the Government’s new tax regime on mining and urged the State to ensure the benefits of the mineral loyalties trickle down to the improvement of social services. Mr Chimbaka told Parliament on Wednesday evening that proceeds from the new tax measures should be used to benefit a lot of infrastructure development projects and the livelihood of the people should be improved on.
Mr Chimbaka was debating on a motion of thanks on President Mwanawasa’s Parliamentary Speech. On Agriculture, he said President Mwanawasa’s statement that the country was moving from sacrifice to wealth creation making the economy work for the people should be taken seriously.
“Whether we are PF, United Liberal Party (ULP), MMD or any political party, we need to ensure this country move forward,” he said.
Mr Chimbaka was, however, disappointed with the Government over the non-re-stocking of fish in Luapula Province despite knowing agriculture was key to national development.
On the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) participation, he commended Dr Mwanawasa for starting the Constitution-making process.
“I commend President Mwanawasa without fear or favour for constituting a forum to enable Zambians sit and make a Constitution which I believe is not going to be based on tribal lines. The President has lived up to his word,” he said.
But PF Lusaka Central MP, Guy Scott, said he could not participate in the NCC because in its current form the NCC Act was defective.
On the mineral agreements, Dr Scott wondered what consultations the Government made when the mine owners recently in the Press were quoted to receive the new tax regime on mines with mixed feelings.
He called on the Government to quickly tell the House what was contained in the new mine agreements.
Mulobezi MP Michael Mabenga (MMD) said President Mwanawasa had done a lot to develop the rural areas in Lukulu, Mongu Solwezi among others.
In his contribution on the same motion, Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources Deputy Minister, Toddy Chilembo, said the long journey of making the Constitution finally had started and all should participate.
On the mineral agreement, Mr Chilembo said his Government embraced the idea, which would ensure that the mining investors paid more taxes.
Labels: BESA CHIMBAKA, INFRASTRUCTURE, MINING AGREEMENTS, NCC
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