7 000 Malawi nurses to down tools today

Nurses across Malawi are expected to stage a sit-in starting today following the Nurses and Midwives Council of Malawi’s failure to upgrade nurse midwife technicians to registered nurses.

About 7 000 nurses across the country are expected to report for work today, but they would “not go to the bedside of patients” until the matter is resolved, the nurses union, National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives in Malawi (Nonm), executive director Harriet Kapyepye told The Nation on Sunday.

The nurses make up 73 percent of the nurses population in Malawi and these were trained through Christian Health Association of Malawi (Cham) institutions.

On October 24 2013, Nonm gave the council a 14-day ultimatum to carry out the conversion after numerous discussions and meetings on the request yielded no result.

On Saturday, Nonm met with the Nurses Council, Minister of Health Catherine Gotani Hara, deputy chief secretary to the government Willie Samute and secretary for Health Charles Mwansambo but the nurses were not dissuaded from the planned sit-in.

In a letter to workers which The Nation has seen, the union warns that there would be a disruption of services or complete withdrawal while the nurses push for their constitutional rights.

The union first raised the concern when it met President Joyce Banda in February this year where an agreement was reached to put in place modalities for the upgrading exercise.

But Kapyepye accused the council of delaying tactics even after some two institutions, including I-Tech, offered to support development of the curriculum.

“It is these misunderstandings that have led to the delays to complete the formulation of the curriculum and syllabus,” Kapyepye said.

Mwansambo said on Sunday the council and his ministry are committed to getting the process started and funds had been committed to the exercise.

He wondered why the nurses were going ahead with the planned sit-in because Nonm management had not communicated the move to his office.