Nurses and midwives have threatened to take ‘next level’ action against government for allegedly ignoring their demands to address challenges affecting healthcare service delivery and improve their welfare.
Through Association of Malawian Midwives (Amami) and National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives (Nonm), the healthcare service providers on February 25 2025 wrote Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) Colleen Zamba about their concerns.
Their decision to pen Zamba stems from a preceding communication between their two mother bodies and President Lazarus Chakwera between December 9 2024 and December 11 2024.
According to the letter signed by Amami president Keith Lipato and Nonm president Shouts Simenza, the two organisations first wrote the President on December 9 2024, asking him to address a myriad of challenges affecting health service delivery, including lack of essential medicines and supplies.
They also asked Chakwera to consider adjusting their salaries, including their locum rates, which are between K3 500 and K5 000 for day and night shift amid a tough economic landscape.
When the letter reached the President, he referred the matter to Zamba and it is against this background the health service providers have written her to intervene as per Chakwera’s directive.
Reads the letter: “Public hospitals in Malawi continue to experience shortage in medicine and supplies. This situation is worsening every day. For instance, patients are being sent to buy medicine and plaster of paris [POP] to manage their fractures at a shop or pharmacy.
“Pregnant and labouring women are being assisted without essential medicines such as oxytocin and magnesium sulphate. Newborn babies are being sent home without the necessary treatment such as tetracycline eye ointment and relevant vaccines.”
The two organisations further decry that infection prevention practices continue to be severely compromised due to lack of chlorine and chlorhexidine.
Healthcare service disruptions, they claim, are compounded by the nurses and midwives’ worries of salary adjustments in the midst of a deteriorating socio-economic environment triggering a rising cost of living.
They have since stressed that their patience is wearing thin
“Nurses and midwives’ patience is running out. It’s now over two months since the President referred our issues to your office, yet we have not received any feedback.
“Continued silence from your office is making us believe the President through your office does not care about the health of Malawians, let alone the welfare of nurses and midwives. As stated in our earlier letter, let it be known to the President through your office that we are now ready to take further action as the pressure from nurses and midwives across Malawi keeps mounting by the second.”
Lipato on Thursday authenticated the memo and preceding correspondence between the two organisations and the President.
But both Zamba and OPC spokesperson Robert Kalindiza did not respond to our questionnaires sent to them through their respective mobile WhatsApp numbers despite an indication that they were read.
