By Lameck Kwalimba
Lilongwe, September 11, Mana: Ministry of Health is geared to recruit more health care workers following the meeting which it had with Human Resource for Health (HRH) Coalition on Friday.
In an interview in Lilongwe on Friday, Secretary for Health, Dr. Charles Mwansambo said one thing that came out clearly in the discussion which was top of the agenda for the Ministry was human resource recruitment.
He said that, “As you may be aware, there’s a huge vacancy rate in the ministry. We’ve trained a number of cadres who are still unemployed, so this meeting this morning brought together quite a number of cadres that we’ve trained but haven’t been employed.”
“Of course, it depends on the established positions and the resources available and just to reassure the team that we are doing everything possible to improve the number of health workers,” Mwansambo added.
According to the Secretary, the ministry was currently engaging relevant authorities on the matter.
He stated that the Ministry cannot tell the exact number that would be recruited because the budget was not yet out.
President for National Organization of Nurses and Midwives of Malawi, Shouts Simeza, said he was happy with the outcome of the meeting.
He said that,“It is good enough that the Secretary for Health,Director of Human Resource in the Ministry and Director of Clinical Services have gone into our thinking that there should be mass recruitment of health workers across the cadres if we are to serve Malawians better and in the process, you know, achieving universal coverage in the country, being a member of World Health Organization (WHO).”
“So we are keeping our fingers crossed that the budget gets into a law and then treasury will not trim the allocations because we have heard that happening many times, even today, that budget that is being presented for the recruitment of health work force gets trimmed,” Simeza noted.
Other issues which were raised at the meeting include anomalies in health personnel promotions, upgrading and internships which the Ministry said is going to look into using the tool of the public sector reforms.
