BY NOKUTHABA DLAMINI
Zimbabwe believes it has finally found a lasting solution to perennial strikes by health workers and address a worsening brain drain – teaching them patriotism.
Information minister Monica Mutsvangwa told journalists in Harare on Tuesday that Cabinet had approved the introduction of “the National Health Service Training and Induction Modules under the Public Service Academy.”
The training programmes will see health workers such as doctors and nurses undergoing orientation where they would be taught about patriotism and national heritage.
“The envisaged training programmes will, therefore, equip healthcare workers with correct standard operating procedures in the discharge of their duties, improved and efficient management skills, and patriotism that promote transparency, accountability and good governance and a high-performance work culture that goes beyond the call of duty,” Mutsvangwa said.
She said the public health service orientation will “include areas on national heritage, patriotism, Vision 2030, legal and policy framework governing the health sector, management skills development and conflict management.”
Last year, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga who doubles as Health and Child Care minister decreed that doctors must be recruited as military officers for them to work in public hospitals.
The decree followed a series of crippling strikes by junior doctors, who were protesting poor working conditions.
Zimbabwe’s constitution does not allow members of the security forces to engage in collective bargaining or to join unions.
Unions representing the doctors at the time said they believed Chiwenga’s ultimate plan was to stop strikes.
Chiwenga, the then army commander who led the coup that toppled long time ruler Robert Mugabe before joining President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government in 2017, has in the past accused health workers of lacking patriotism by joining strikes.
Zimbabwe’s health delivery system has been crippled by a severe brain drain as doctors, nurses and other professionals trek to overseas and neighbouring countries for better paying jobs.