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Dr Gwinji

Paidamoyo Chipunza Senior Reporter
Government is planning to trade-in posts for Government Medical Officers (GMOs) with already established posts for specialist doctors in provincial hospitals to address employment challenges for junior doctors coming from medical school, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Dr Gerald Gwinji has said.

Responding to questions from The Herald on doctors’ posts which are now exhausted, Dr Gwinji said Government was unlikely to fill up the specialist posts in the near future, hence the option to fill the posts with GMOs.

“In the short term we are going to trade-in several provincial specialist posts for this challenge because we are unlikely to fill all these specialist posts in the coming four to five years due to the time it takes to train them,” said Dr Gwinji.

Information gathered by The Herald showed that one post for a specialist doctor is equal to two and a half posts for GMOs.

This means Government can employ five GMOs on two specialist posts.

However, The Herald could not immediately establish how many vacant specialist posts are available at the moment.

Dr Gwinji said in the long term, Government continues to push for the upward review of staff establishments in public health institutions.

“In the medium to long term we will push for the long overdue and much needed establishment expansion,” he said.

Recently, Government announced that it was no longer able to employ doctors after completion of their internship, a position the doctors have since responded to by demanding their practising certificates to enable them seek employment elsewhere.

The Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association president, Dr Farai Munatsi, said all was well if Government guaranteed their employment after completion of their internship. “What we do not want is last year’s scenario where some doctors went for up to six months without employment,” he said.

After completion of their studies, doctors are required to undergo a two-year internship after which they are given a temporary certificate to practise in a Government institution for another year.

It is only after completion of this one year as a GMO, that they get their open practising certificate enabling them to search for employment from any employer of their choice.

The Ministry of Health and Child Care has been advocating for upward revision of all medical posts arguing that the current establishment was last reviewed in the 1980s.

Since then the disease pattern has changed, the burden of care has grown due to increased population while public institutions have also expanded, hence the need to review the number of practitioners required per institution.

For instance, the current doctor-to-patient ratio in Government institutions stands at one doctor per 250 000 patients.

The ideal scenario would be one doctor per 1 000 patients.

However, according to the 1980 establishment all posts for GMOs are now filled up, yet patients still spend lengthy hours waiting to consult a doctor.