The Ministry of Health and Child Care has defended the e-recruitment of nurses saying it is not region-based and the process is credible as the selection is done on a random basis.
In a statement, Health Minister Obadiah Moyo said the e-recruitment method was introduced to eradicate corruption in the recruitment of nurses. He said:
The government wishes to inform the public that there was no favouritism in the recruitment of student nurses and that students from Matabeleland provinces were also considered to train in the just ended e-nursing recruitment processes.
The e-recruitment process was not conducted on a regional basis but on a national basis and it offered credibility in that it administered the selection on a random process, no one knew who was to be selected and who was not to be selected as the process was done electronically.
The online portal for nursing applications was opened this year and was open to aspiring nurses throughout the country.
However, the process caused outrage in the Matabeleland provinces as more than 80 per cent of student nurses enrolled at Bulawayo’s two major hospitals came from Mashonaland provinces.
What the Honourable Minister of Health, Dr Obadiah Moyo is correct to say the system is not discriminatory by design, however what he should acknowledge is that while not designed to that effect the end result, the felt and actual result has been!!! It would be ideal therefore Hon. Minister to use the same system at Provincial Level managed by the provincial offices, preferably alongside a quota system used by sister Departments in the Defence; Home Affairs (Police); Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) which has a deliberate social justice effect rather hoping for one from a computerised package that does not take into consideration the historical injustices that held back some provinces’ development both in terms of school infrastructure and soft human aspect thereof. Such unfortunately Hon. Dr Minister cannot be corrected via a software but a system with a human face and reasoning!!!!