The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has launched a program to lure exiled Zimbabwean medical staff back to the country as efforts intensify to revive the health sector which has virtually collapsed due to poor budgetary support and an exodus of health personnel.
The IOM program would seek to entice doctors, hospital administrators, dentists, nurses and health technicians to offer their services on a short-term basis, while efforts were being made to recruit permanent staff for Zimbabwe’s medical facilities.
Under the program, the health professionals would be required to spend from two to four weeks at Zimbabwe hospitals, where they would treat patients, conduct joint medical procedures with local personnel, provide administrative services and perform laboratory tests.
The program also targets lecturers who have deserted the country’s main medical schools for other countries.
Zimbabwe’s health sector is one of the industries hardest hit by a nine-year economic and political crisis that has seen some of the country’s major hospitals running without doctors or drugs.
Source African Press Agency
