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Mukudzei Chingwere 

Harare Bureau

ZIMBABWE last week joined the rest of the global medical fraternity in celebrating International Nurses Day amid a wave of Government appreciation by the nurses.

The international theme for this year’s celebrations is “Our Nurses. Our Future.” and comes at a time when Government is doubling efforts to appreciate nurses and all Government employees in general.

Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care Dr Constantino Chiwenga is on record saying for Zimbabwe to achieve its national health transformation trajectory nurses and all health workers in general will have to have improved work service conditions.

Vice President Dr Constantino Chiwenga

In an interview with the Herald, founder and chairperson of nurses and midwives in government, Professor Pisirayi Ndarukwa said nurses in Government and the generality of government health workers appreciate government efforts in continuously improving their terms of service.

“Government has never reneged its responsibility on its employees, especially the health workers, government has come up with several mechanisms of ensuring that they are well taken care of,” said Professor Ndarukwa.

“It has non-monetary incentives that it has put in place to ensure that they are taken care of. Government has come up with a number of stop gap measures to ensure that health workers will be remunerated in a better way.

“We are engaging government to ensure that the disparity in salaries with other countries in the region is closed,” said Prof Ndarukwa.

He said health workers also get money, annually, to buy uniforms and a monthly allowance for maintenance of uniforms that is for cleaning the said uniforms. 

Some nurses trended last week after telling parliamentarians of their earnings, which as it later turned out was hugely understated and said they were quoted out of context.

A senior tutor at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals Nursing School Ms Rachel Mashayamombe said they were discussing pensionable earnings not necessarily the totality they take home.

“I was quoted out of context, I was talking of the basic salary which is pensionable upon my retirement.

“I further explained that besides the basic salary we also get some Covid-19 allowance that is US$200 which is given to every civil servant and there are also some allowances which we are given as managers,” said Ms Mashayamombe.

She further explained that she takes home US$ retention allowances on top of the US$200 and other allowances in local currency on top of the basic salary. 

Nurses who talked to the Herald at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals who could not be named as they are not authorised to speak for the generality of the nurses commended monetary and non-monetary benefits they are getting from Government.

“I want to thank Government for the USD Covid-19 allowances it cushions us. For us health workers there are extra allowances, the retention allowance which government gave the greenlight to partners so that we can get those allowances,” said a Parirenyatwa based Nurse.

“We are grateful for several other non-monetary benefits, especially the duty free allowance which allows us to import vehicles without paying import duty,” said another Parirenyatwa based nurse.