Health and Child Care Minister Douglas Mombeshora said that the government plans to train 7,000 health workers annually to ease the country’s critical shortage of medical professionals.
Speaking last week during a tour of hospitals in Bulawayo, Mombeshora said the ambitious programme aims to double Zimbabwe’s health workforce by 2030, ensuring that hospitals and clinics can adequately serve a population that has more than doubled since independence. He said:
“At independence, our population was 7.5 million and in the last census, we project that we are around 16.5 million yet we have not increased our establishment. We currently have about 26 health workers per 100 000 people, but WHO recommends 46.
“That means we must double our workforce and while this cannot happen overnight, our target is to achieve it by 2030.
“There is an urgent need for a review more important than ever as the population has doubled in the past 45 years.”
Mombeshora said staffing shortages remain the biggest challenge across the country, with specialist doctors being the hardest to find.
At UBH, a key referral hospital, there isn’t a single radiologist or pathologist, while Ingutsheni Central Hospital, Zimbabwe’s largest psychiatric facility, is operating with just two psychiatrists.
Mombeshora was in Bulawayo last week, where he toured United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH), Mpilo, Ingutsheni and the new Cowdray Park Health Centre.
