Nurses allowance raise next financial year
By Audrey Kapalamula:
The Ministry of Health has said it will implement revised locum allowances that nurses are demanding in the next financial year.
The nurses, through National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives (Nomn), want an increase in overtime allowances and, to press for the upward adjustment, nurses at Kamuzu Central Hospital stopped working extra hours.
Ministry of Health officials were Monday locked in a meeting with Nonm and Ministry of Local Government officials and other stakeholders to find solutions to the nurses’ demand.
Ministry of Health spokesperson, Joshua Malango, said concerned parties including the National Locum Taskforce which was established in 2016, need to agree on new locum rates.
“There are already proposed figures from the taskforce which they presented at the management level to the ministry. We needed to have them on board so that this revision of figures should also be agreed upon by different councils and Local Government to be implemented across the board. So in the meeting, we had to tell them realistically that these new rates of allowance can only be implemented from July [next financial year],” he said
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Malango said the proposed rates show that nurses locum allowance ranges from K10, 000 to K15, 000 while medical specialists have their own amount.
Nonm President, Shouts Simeza, said the nurses have no option but to wait for the next financial year.
Nurses work overtime due to shortage of health personnel in most hospitals of the country.
The Ministry of Health has said more nurses will be recruited starting April this year.
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