BY NQOBANI NDLOVU / PRAISEMORE SITHOLE
A group of Matabeleland activists assisting aspiring nurse trainees from the region with the recruitment processes is petitioning Parliament to push for an overhaul of the enrolment exercise they condemn as biased.
The Child and Health Care ministry’s online recruitment has been marred by accusations that it is “rigged” against aspiring nurse trainees from the region, resulting in protests at the nurse training institutions in Bulawayo and Plumtree.
It all began on October 9, 2019 when reports surfaced that Mpilo Central Hospital recruited 24 nurse trainees, and 20 were from outside Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and South.
The same read for United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) where 23 out of 27 trainees were from outside Matabeleland. Learning began on October 7, 2019.
A member of the Volunteers Team 2020, the umbrella term used by a group of Matabeleland activists who were in the forefront in assisting thousands of potential applicants from the region with the Health and Child Care ministry’s e-application said the problem remains unresolved till today.
“The statistics of nursing students at all nursing training institutions from the Zambezi to the Limpopo, Victoria Falls to the Eastern Highlands, clearly showed that there was under-recruitment of people from Midlands and Matabeleland. That problem remains unsolved up to today,” said Discent Collins Bajila.
“All we have done through this exercise is to learn and have live experience of the structural and deliberate marginalisation of people from these particular areas.
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“We have learnt and we will soon compile a document on the issues learnt with a view of making recommendations to Parliament and government.
“Already 29 young people we assisted have made written submissions on their experience and made some recommendations. Once we have completed studying them, we will compile a document and make it public.”
The Health ministry introduced the online e-recruitment exercise for aspiring nurses following allegations that the previously used centralised system at its head offices in the capital, Harare, was open to abuse and corruption.
This was after Matabeleland activists protested against what they described as questionable recruitment of nurse trainees at Mpilo, UBH and Brunapeg Mission Hospital in Matabeleland South.
A number of Zapu leaders were also arrested recently for forcing the temporary closure of Brunapeg Mission Hospital as they protested the unfair recruitment of nurse trainees.
