By Talent Gondo| Fired nurses can reapply to be reinstated back into the health sector, the minister of Health and Child Care, David Parirenyatwa has said.

Parirenyatwa said the fired nurses will be considered and will not be penalised just like those who are applying for the first time or are reapplying following their retirement.

“Government had to bend backward to give in to the nurses’ demands but they chose to be intransigent,” said Parirenyatwa.

“However, they are free to reapply and they will be considered just like everybody else.”

Parirenyatwa however said government needed committed nurses and called on those who are seeking to be employed by the health sector to deliver on their mandate professionally.

“We will need committed nurses,” he said.

He said this exercise provided the health ministry with the opportunity to boost its human resource capital base and employ qualified nurses who are currently unemployed.

“This provides us with the opportunity to mop up all those that are not employed,” he said, adding that the health sector was currently understaffed due to the government freeze on the recruitment of nurses.

“These nurses are important because they are the custodians of the people’s health. Both the fired nurses and the qualified but unemployed nurses will be taken. We will absorb them because we were short of nurses,” said the health minister.

Parirenyatwa’s statements come amid recent developments where the VP Constantino Guvheya Chiwenga, fired all striking nurses for failing to heed calls to go back to work while their concerns were being addressed

The nurses embarked on industrial action citing poor remuneration and unfavourable working conditions among a host of other grievances.