Bulawayo City Council (BCC) clinics have been hit by mass exodus of nurses, a development that has further crippled the city’s health delivery system, which was already operating at 60 percent capacity.

The council runs 19 clinics in the city and they are operating with staffing levels of between 49 and 61 percent. Council requires a staff complement of 186 nursing staff to operate at full capacity.

However, the local authority has been running with 120 nurses but resignations has seen the figure dropping to 87 after 33 nurses left between June last year and this month.

Nurses who resigned cited poor salaries and working conditions. It could not be immediately established how much the nurses are earning but the lowest paid council worker earns $14 000.

Authorities are now fearing for the worst saying if the issue is not resolved in the next three months, it is likely to turn into a health catastrophe.

The latest developments come as the local authority is battling service delivery challenges due to a sharp decline in revenue inflows.

According to council, only 16 percent of its ratepayers paid fully their bills in 2020 while 22 percent did not make any payments resulting in council being owed nearly $663 million.

In January, Bulawayo City Council (BCC) workers went on a five-day strike over poor salaries, crippling critical services such as primary health care, refuse collection and burials.

-State Media