Govt runs short of healthcare workers

MERCY KARUUOMBE and 
CHARLOTTE NAMBADJATHE Ministry of Health and Social Services is experiencing a shortage of healthcare workers nationwide as staff at healthcare facilities continue to be overwhelmed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to an advertisement for a vacant post at a healthcare facility, the ministry needs to fill various positions, from medical officers to enrolled nurses.

Posts in more more than 10 job categories have been advertised.

Minister of health and social services Kalumbi Shangula this week said the vacancies are a result of the country running short of healthcare workers.

Deputy executive director in the ministry Petronella Masabane said the ministry is looking for the professionals listed, and will select suitable candidates from the applicants.

Healthcare workers countrywide are complaining they are overworked and drained.

Shangula could not immediately provide a figure indicating how big the budget for these posts is.

The ministry earlier this year revealed that more than half of the health professionals in the country are employed in the private sector, which serves less than 20% of the population.

in February last year reported there were 17 500 registered healthcare professionals in the country.

Of those, 63% served the private health sector, and only 37% the public sector.

Executive director of health Ben Nangombe at the time said the ministry granted approval to fill more than 4 000 critical positions.

Meanwhile, Katutura Intermediate Hospital workers in Windhoek say their pleas are falling on deaf ears.

Some nurses at the hospital’s casualty department anonymously tells they are mentally drained and the situation keeps getting worse.

“It is very tough in the casualty department, and we are so stressed. The department, which is meant for emergencies only, now looks like a ward,” a nurse says.

She says sometimes more than 10 patients are brought in at the same time – all in need of oxygen.

She said the area is not big enough to accommodate all the patients, and “we are forced to attend to patients on the floor”.

“We as nurses are really trying our level best to help save lives, but at times we are blamed for a patient’s death,” she says.

“We never send patients back due to a lack of space, but what if there are no other alternatives? It is an everyday struggle,” she says.

On the same day that president Hage Geingob visited the facility last week eight dead bodies were lying in the casualty department.

“Our management failed to bring him [Geingob] to the casualty department to see [the situation] for himself. I am not sure if the president knows, because they are hiding it from him,” the nurse says.

She expressed her disappointment in the nurses’ union, which has up to date not stood up for them, she says.

Another nurse says they are affected emotionally due to seeing virus victims’ bodies daily.

She says at times, the city’s morgue takes a whilel before collecting the bodies, because they are inundated with calls from different wards.

Another nurse says they were all hoping for the president to visit the casualty department to see the situation on the ground.

“They will keep saying everything is under control, because they have not been at the department during the time of the pandemic,” the minister says.

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