Ministry in dire need of specialists
Minister of Health (MoH) Dr Edwin Dikoloti has revealed that they’re currently engaged in negotiations with the Directorate of Public Service Managemen (DPSM) to review local octors’ salaries.
He said the issue was discussed during a recent cabinet retreat, and an agreement to fast-track talks with DPSM was reached.
Giving a health update recently, Dikoloti said his Ministry is finding it difficult to retain specialist doctors, who are leaving government health institutions in large numbers in search of greener pastures.
He said this year alone, government has spent P60 million to train more specialist doctors, nurses and allied health practitioners.
“Health is a specialised sector, so their salaries must be reviewed,” said Dikoloti.
The Minister said their biggest concern is that after completing their specialised training, doctors only spend three months working at government hospitals before joining private practice or moving abroad.
“We’ve shortage of Operating Department Practitioner or Anaesthetics Nurses, Orthopaedics, eye specialists, Neurosurgeon among others,” he said.
He further revealed that they’ve the intake of specialists and increased their training budget f P15 million to P60 million annually.
“Research shows that in the next 10 years there will be shortage of 80 million doctors across the world so we are preparing for the future,” said Dikoloti.
Dr Dikoloti further said many people are losing their lives to non-communicable diseases like cancer so which calls for more specialists.
However with the recent 300 percent salary hike by the Zambian government, Dikoloti’s Ministry is also finding it hard to attract specialists from the neighbouring country to address the acute shortage.
For his part,MoH Deputy Permanent SecetaryDr Tshepo Machacha said it’s important to invest in local doctors and motivate them. He said they have also deployed over 400 specialist nurses to augment the doctors.
“We went to other countries like Namibia and Zambia for benchmarking to find out how they managed to retain their health professionals and shared them with DPSM. If we can’t retain them the cabinet has agreed to allow specialists to use our facilities and we see how they can assist the public. Health can’t be one size fit all, and the conversation with DPSM is at an advanced stage. The other thing we are looking at is condition of service for our employees,” said Machacha.