Paul Nyathi
More than 1 000 nurses who wete removed from the monthly pay sheets for refusing to work standard hours on the instruction of Health Minister Constantino Chiwenga last month are being reinstated after being coerced by government to apologise for their act.
The Health Services Board (HSB) removed 1 032 nurses from its pay sheets after they insisted on working flexible hours which were agreed on during a collective bargaining exercise defying Chiwenga’s instruction which had ordered all nurses back at work in full hours.
The nurses were later dragged into disciplinary hearings where the Nurses Union indicate that the Nurses were ordered to submit written apologies for their actions if they wanted their jobs back.
In the “comman apology letters, the Nurses were told to vowed to comply with the prescribed shifts and never defy given instructions.
Authorities agreed to forgive the “repentant ones” and HSB chair Dr Paulinas Sikhosana confirmed that the process of returning nurses to the payroll had started with some having been already reinstated.
“We have started the process and some are now on the pay sheets,” he said. “I am not sure about the numbers as yet, but those who apologised earlier like the ones at Sally Mugabe Central Hospital have been reinstated.”
A total of 504 Sally Mugabe Central Hospital nurses, 258 at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals and 229 at United Bulawayo Hospitals have formally apologised.
Of the 1 032 struck off the pay sheets by the HSB, only 41 are yet to formally express regret for defying a legal directive for them to resume normal shifts.
Of the 41 who are yet to officially ask for pardon, a few are union leaders.
Acting Health and Child Care Minister Professor Amon Murwira confirmed the resumption of normal rosters by nurses.
“We are taking their issue further and what I can say is that they can expect positive feedback,” he said in an interview. “The nurses who were initially not reporting for duty wrote letters to us apologising.
“The nurses who wrote the letters say they do not have anything to do with the conflict that has been going on. I am happy that they are working and what we want is to improve the country’s health system.”