Infrastructure Shortfall Denies Rural Children Nurse Training Slots

The Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Douglas Mombeshora, said some children in rural and remote areas are struggling to secure places at nurse training institutions, not because they have been neglected, but due to a shortage of teaching staff and inadequate infrastructure at the schools.

Mombeshora was responding to Mkoba South MP John Kuka (CCC), who asked what the government was doing to assist children from rural and remote areas who have repeatedly failed to gain enrolment at nurse training institutions. Said Mombeshora:

“The quota system, which was introduced in 2024, was meant to promote equal representation in all districts in the provinces.

“It is recommended that the responsible officers in these districts consider those who have been applying for a long time and meet the entry requirements, but are not shortlisted.

“However, the number of candidates applying for nurse training is very high and available nurse training schools cannot recruit a higher percentage due to a shortage of teaching staff and inadequate infrastructure.

“The ministry is in the process of identifying and capacitating other institutions that can train nurses.

“E-learning has been introduced in 23 out of the 73 schools and it will address the shortage of teaching staff, but the challenges remain of inadequate ICT equipment and unavailability of Wi-Fi.

“It is a mammoth task and that is why we simply said in every district that has a hospital that trains nurses, that same district with that school must have 50 percent of the children coming from that same district. 

“That is the quota which we did and then we stated that the province should provide a certain percentage. 

“So, the numbers are still limited, but what we are going to do now is that we are trying to train quite a number of those nurses.”

Mombeshora said the government will continue to establish additional nurse training institutions across the country to increase enrolment opportunities. He said:

“As of now, we are to take those private schools that would then train those nurses. We used to have only Hwange Hospital, which was not part of the Government hospitals which were training those nurses.

“We are looking into some other hospitals to ensure that they will recruit some of those nurses to be trained.

“It is true that we have the challenge of those children who apply once or twice or three times and fail to be enrolled.”

Mombeshora also noted that the Ministry of Health cannot train too many nurses, as the government may not have the budget to employ them all. He said:

“Another problem is, if we train quite a number of them, where will we employ them? We discussed with the Treasury that the number of nurses should double by 2030 and we need to ensure that those trained nurses are recruited.

“Those are some of the steps that we are taking as the Government to ensure that we recruit more nurses.”

More: The Herald

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