Unemployed nurses demand employment from government
Over 3,200 unemployed nursing officers in the country have called on the government to employ them or allow them to seek jobs in countries ready to employ them such as the United States of America and Saudi Arabia.
The nursing officer say they will take action if government does not heed to their call.
Speaking during a press briefing organised by a grouping under the banner ‘Unemployed Nursing Officers in Malawi’ on Thursday in Blantyre, the group’s chairman Frank Kamwendo said the government should recruit the unemployed nurses who graduated from as far back as 2015.
“We demand formal employment from the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Labour so that we get out of this torturous life that the two ministries have heaped on nursing officers.
“Failure to address this genuine concern shall lead to unspecified action in due course,” he said.
Kamwendo said the nursing officers were also failing to venture into entrepreneurship to make ends meet as they are being denied by the Pharmacy Medicine Regulatory Authority (PMRA) to use their licenses to open their own medicine stores.
“It is very pathetic. The nursing officers are being denied the chance to use their licenses to open drug stores. The authority says its act was revised and it only allows pharmacy assistants to use their licences to open drugstores.
“As nursing officers we are supposed to ask for their [pharmacy assistants] licences for us to use and in the process we give them K600, 000 which is impossible as we are unemployed,” he said.
Kamwendo said they were also demanding the Minister of Health to rescind PMRA’s decision to put into effect its revised act.
The group has since asked the Ministry of Health to negotiate with other stakeholders; for instance, National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives (Nonm) and World Health Organisation (WHO) to facilitate human resource exportation.
“We are ready to go and work elsewhere if need be since they do not want to employ us here,” he said.
The unemployed nurses said they have been negotiating with the Ministry of Health but have not been getting any positive results.
When contacted on Thursday, the Ministry of Health spokesperson Adrian Chikumbe asked for two hours to check with other authorities. He had not responded as we went to press last evening.
National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives of Malawi (Nonm) president Shouts Simeza said they are still negotiating with the Ministry of Health on exportation of human resource after government shot down its proposal three weeks ago.
“We are still pursuing the issue. The process continues and we have not stopped,” he said.
Simeza also said Nonm was still exploring other alternatives to help unemployed nurses and midwives.
“We are the mouth piece for the nursing and midwifery profession. We speak on their behalf and we lobby for nurses and midwives, we have not stayed put and we haven’t stopped doing that because that is our mandate,” he said.
Simeza, however, said the grouping did not check with Nonm and they did not copy it their grievances but rather directly addressed it to the Ministry of Health.
Matilda Chimwaza Majawa is a Features Reporter at Times Group. She is passionate about women and girls empowerment.
