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Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Reporter
GOVERNMENT and the insurance sector are working on modalities of ensuring that all frontline workers in the health sector who are involved in the fight against Covid-19 are insured without paying premiums, Vice-President Kembo Mohadi has said.

Speaking during a tour of health facilities in Bulawayo to assess the city’s state of preparedness in the fight against Covid-19 last Friday, VP Mohadi said Government was concerned about the welfare of its health workers hence the need to address some of the pertinent issues related to their work.

VP Mohadi said there is need for every Zimbabwean to collectively fight Covid-19 through giving frontline workers morale and financial support.

“As Government we looked at a number of issues affecting our frontline workers. We realised that it is important to have someone on the frontline insured in the event that they succumb to Covid-19 and that is when we decided to rope in the insurance people, saying can you insure these people without any premium. I had a meeting with insurance firms and they have agreed in principle to insure our frontline workers without them paying any premiums. We are doing this so that our people can be ready to confront Covid-19,” he said.

VP Mohadi last week met the Zimbabwe Insurance and Pension Apex Council in Harare during which Government was urged to consider establishing a prescribed asset to fund the pandemic.

A prescribed asset is a bond or security issued by the Government, local authorities, quasi-Government organisations or any other bond that may be accorded the prescribed asset status to fund projects.

“Covid-19 knows no race, tribe, colour or religion so let’s look at ourselves as human beings first. We were all human beings before race divided us and before religion separated us and again, we were all human beings before wealth classified us so this pandemic knows no classification, race or politics hence we want all hands on the deck in our quest to fight the disease,” said VP Mohadi.

He said Government was also engaging the hospitality industry so that doctors and other health workers involved in the fight against Covid-19 are accommodated in hotels as part of measures to avoid the spread of the pandemic. “We are saying a frontline worker can contract Covid-19 in the course of his or her duty and the individual has a family hence the possibility of infecting family members. The best way to handle the issue is to isolate our doctors and other health personnel and we should get them somewhere where they can stay instead of going back to their families,” he said.

VP Mohadi said hotels have not been receiving guests because of the lockdown and as such the facilities are under-utilised.

“We are therefore planning to move our doctors and other health staff involved in the fight against Covid-19 into these hotels so that they don’t go back to their families after work as this puts their families at risk,” he said.

VP Mohadi said Government is committed to providing frontline health workers such as doctors, nurses and other health staff with personal protective equipment (PPE) to ensure their safety as they attend to Covid-19 patients.

“We need to have personnel that should execute the task that we would have given them and there is training that is already taking place but I am worried about the pace at which we are doing testing as it is too slow. If we train adequate personnel to deploy as frontline soldiers to fight this pandemic, we also need equipment,” he said.

“We need to give them what they should have and that is personal protective equipment and all the required consumables. There is no use in deploying a battalion to the frontline without requisite ammunition. You need to arm them to the teeth so that they do their work.”

The Vice-President also urged Zimbabweans to embrace World Health Organisations (WHO) guideline such as practising social distancing and maintaining basic hygienic standards to curb the spread of the virus. – @mashnets.