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Daniel Nemukuyu

Investigations Editor

A shortage of nurses has forced the Harare City Council to close nine clinics.

A combination of poor planning, sheer incompetence and corruption has resulted in the MDC-run council recently losing over 500 nurses to foreign and local organisations, leaving it unable to operate all its clinics.

The local authority, which has a staff establishment of 1 000 nurses, is now operating with about 400 nurses after most of staff left for greener pastures.

The crisis has led to the closure of Southerton, Matapi and Highlands Polyclinic while six others — Mt Pleasant, Borrowdale, Avondale, Braeside, Glen Norah clinics and Highlands Family Health Services-  are now only open for Covid-19 vaccinations.

Meanwhile, council has issued a notice to recruit 320 nurses (270 permanent and 50 locum nurses) to improve health care service and to ease pressure on the available staff.

In an interview, HCC health services director Dr Prosper Chonzi said staff shortage had forced council to close the seven clinics.

“We have lost hundreds of our nurses who resigned and pursued greener pastures. At the height of the Covid-19 era, most nurses were flocking to the United Kingdom while others went to other foreign countries where they were offered better remuneration.

“Some were recruited by local non-governmental organisations, who also offered them better salaries in foreign currency. Some organisations that fish from our pond are even our partners and we work with them, hence it was an issue of a nurse continuing to do the same job in council, but now being paid by an NGO.

“To that end, we started rationalising our services, taking those few nurses left at some smaller clinics, moving them to bigger clinics to boost staff there. We would then shut those smaller clinics. “Currently, a total of nine clinics are closed, that is, three are completely shut while six others are partially open for Covid-19 vaccination only. They will re-open for all services when the staff crisis is resolved,” said Dr Chonzi.

He added that the shortage is affecting service delivery.

“If you lose 50 percent of your nurses, you become 50 percent less efficient and pressure will pile on the remaining nurses.

“One of our policies is that a patient cannot spend more than two hours at a clinic without being attended to, but these days they now wait for over three hours, a development that compromises on our efficiency,” he said.

The same local authority is also battling brain drain in the fire department amid reports that over 125 fire fighters this year left for oil companies in the Middle East.

Forty more fighters are expected to leave for Saudi Arabia soon, creating an acute shortage of manpower for the ailing department.

The local authority has been reduced to a mere training ground for fire fighters, who leave for the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other countries after an intensive and world-class training exercise.

After the departure of the teams, council goes back to the drawing board.

A depleted fleet of over 10 faulty fire engines is parked at council’s Belvedere yard and reliable sources say only one, registration number AAE 8946, is fully-functional and is attending to most fire incidents in the capital.

The unavailability of fire fighting kits for the fighters and fire engines has rendered most employees technically redundant, as they end up being assigned to do general cleaning and weeding of flowers at the workplace.

Research by The Herald shows that most of the fire fighters leaving for the Middle East were getting salaries ranging from US$1 800 to US$2 500 per month plus allowances.

They get a loan of up to US$20 000 upon recruitment, which they use to upgrade their lives.

Companies in need of fire fighters, use Zimbabweans who are already working for them to come and fish more staff from the Harare City Council pond.

Meanwhile, Harare City Council’s emergency services has an acute shortage of ambulances with employees saying only two were fully functional.

Sources told The Herald that relied on two vehicles, one of which, only does the work during the day because of lighting challenges.

According to sources in the council’s workshop, a Ford Ranger registration number GHCC 1583 (white), was one of the ambulances servicing the city but it has lighting challenges.

“At night, the Ford Ranger in question cannot be used because of poor lighting. Most of the ambulances and fire tenders here, are unroadworthy and if the Vehicle Inspectorate Department is to check on their road-worthiness, none will pass the test,” said the source. In a recent tweet, council indicated the procurement of 10 more ambulances was underway.

“A tender for 10 ambulances is at an advanced stage. Council to receive two fire tenders soon.

“They are a donation from Operation Florian. Two more to be shipped,” reads the tweet.