HARARE – The government has responded to the outcry over the recruitment of nursing students by decentralising the process.
Provincial and central hospitals will now select applicants during the next intake in May 2020, Health Minister Obadiah Moyo said on Sunday.
The government is however maintaining that all applications will be done electronically.
There was an outcry early this month after hospitals in Bulawayo, Masvingo, Midlands, Matabeleland South and Matabeleland North found themselves with an overwhelming number of students from Harare.
The selection process had been done in Harare, with names being sent down to hospitals.
“Going forward, the electronic recruitment will be administered by the province and central hospitals starting with the May 2020 intake. The government will continue to put in place measures and policies that will curb corruption,” Moyo said in a statement.
Moyo maintained that the recruitment process had been fair. He said 464 applications had been received from the Matabeleland provinces, with 102 students recruited.
He added: “The computerised random nature of the e-selection process eliminates bias, human error and offers equal chances of selection to each and every applicant across the country. The random selection and placement of trainees across the geographical regions enables cross fertilisations and experiences by trainees across the cultural diversities of Zimbabwe.
“The e-nursing recruitment process offered credibility in the recruitment exercise in that it administered the selection on a random basis. This saw a sizeable number of students from Matabeleland region being selected and posted to train in other provinces and vice versa.
“This was a recommendation coming from Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission which had done an audit of the recruitment process in all of the Central and Provincial Hospitals and unearthed alarming levels of corruption.”
ZAPU led protests at Mpilo Central Hospital’s school of nursing, prompting Judith Ncube, the provincial affairs minister for Bulawayo, to petition the health ministry to relook at the recruitment system.
Vice President Kembo Mohadi also vowed to “address this issue”, telling a rally in Bulawayo: “You will find that whenever there is a recruitment drive in the army or police, they have what they call a quota system where each and every province brings its own people. The recruitees are then chosen from every district so that the entire country is represented.
“Government policy is that the recruitment must be done equitably. We don’t want bias in that regard. We are going to look into it so that it is rectified.”
