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Dr David Parirenyatwa

Patrick Chitumba Victoria Falls Reporter
Government will unfreeze all nursing posts to ensure unemployed nurses are recruited to improve the nurse: patient ratio in line with international standards, a Cabinet minister said. Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the Partners in Population and Development (PPD) meeting in Victoria Falls yesterday, Minister of Health and Child Care, Dr David Parirenyatwa, said the move would see the employment of 2 400 unemployed nurses.

“We are pushing for the unfreezing of nurses’ posts and that will see 2 400 nurses getting employed,” he said.
Government froze the nursing posts five years ago, a situation which has led to a shortage of nurses in major referral institutions countrywide.

Meanwhile, officially opening the meeting, Dr Parirenyatwa said the millennium development goals (MDGs) agreed in September 2000 at the UN millennium summit could not be isolated from the broader scope of the Intentional Conference on Population Development.

He said that since ICPD, Family Planning Services in Zimbabwe have immensely contributed to the increase of contraceptive prevalence rate currently at 60 percent from 48 percent in 1994.