Low funding for nurses’ recruitment worries NGO

National Organisation for Nurses and Midwives (Nonm) has expressed worry over inadequate funding which government has allocated to the Ministry of Health and Population for recruitment of nurses.

Nonm president Charles Simeza said in an interview on Monday that instead of providing the proposed K2 billion in the 2019/20 National Budge for nurses recruitment, government has only given the ministry K500 million.

He said the ministry submitted the organisation’s budget to the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development to facilitate the recruitment of health workers and improve the health sector.

According to Simeza, their organisation learnt that the Ministry of Health has only received K500 million, which he described as inadequate for procuring medicine for hospitals and other health facilities.

He said: “We learnt that the ministry has been allocated only K500 million, which is too small. This has raised eyebrows not only for us as an organisation but also the ministry itself. For example, in 2018/19 the ministry proposed K2.7 billion but K800 million was released. So, if the ministry struggled with K800 million, how much more will they struggle with K500 million.

“We are saying this money is not enough and we will continue engaging relevant authorities, including the ministry, for an increment in the allocation of financial resources for recruiting the additional health workers.”

On his part, Parliamentary Committee on Health chairperson Mathews Ngwale said Nonm, made a presentation to the committee highlighting the shortage of nurses and the need to recruit more from those graduating.