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Auxilia Katongomara Chronicle Reporter
BULAWAYO City Council clinics are operating with 62 percent of the required nursing staff, compromising the delivery of essential health services.The city’s Deputy Chief Nursing officer, Catherine Banana, said the staff shortage had led to nurses on duty being overloaded with work.
Banana said this at the belated World Aids Day commemorations held in the city yesterday.

World Aids Day falls on December 1 every year and the 2014 theme was “Getting to Zero in Africa: Africa’s responsibility, Everyone’s Responsibility.”

Banana said the acute staff shortage had seen patients waking up as early as 4AM to be in the queue risking being mugged. Clinics open at 7AM.

Banana said the local authority operated 19 clinics as well as one infectious diseases hospital in Thorngrove.

“As the Bulawayo City Council we’ve several challenges that we face in our fight against HIV/Aids chief among them is staff shortages. We’re operating with 62 percent nursing staff which is less than 200 when we need over 300 nurses. This has resulted in work overload for the nurses as well as long winding queues,” she said.

According to the latest council report, BCC has made a request to the government for more staff after an Ebola suspected patient was admitted to Thorngrove last month.

No case of Ebola has been recorded in Zimbabwe, but council said those who are monitored have brought to the fore the shortage of health personnel.

“This exercise brought to the fore the serious effects that council would face  due to shortages of staff should there be many patients who are very ill and, therefore, require a higher degree of care,” said the council report.

“While the Ministry of Health and Child Care has been advised of this shortage, there has been no commitment to second staff. Thus council needed to be aware of the need to put in place emergency measures to engage locum staff to form teams to manage patients.”

The government has, however, promised to start recruitment of staff in critical areas like the health sector in due course.

Meanwhile, Banana also revealed that 36,387 patients were receiving Anti-retroviral drugs from council clinics.

She also highlighted that they were facing challenges with expecting mothers since the introduction of the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) at council clinics in April this year.

“We’ve a problem with expecting mothers who’re not booking their pregnancies or booking very late. Others refuse to take ARVs when they test positive insisting that they’re well but they’re  taking prophylaxis to prevent their children getting infected,” added the senior nurse.

The city’s Deputy Chief Nursing Officer said they also faced challenges with mothers who erased their children’s status on baby health cards.

She said this is a matter of concern as nurses cannot monitor such children as they would be unaware of their status.

Yesterday’s World Aids Day commemorations were hosted by the National Aids Council (NAC) and began with a march from Pick n Pay Hyper to the Large City Hall. The event was attended by a number of HIV/Aids support groups, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union, Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association and People Living with HIV networks, among others.

A candle lighting ceremony was held in memory of people who have died or are affected by the epidemic.