Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
Minister of Health Sylvia Masebo says the earmarked recruitment of 11,200 health personnel should be implemented with immediate effect to mitigate the challenge of shortage of manpower in health facilities in the wake of the fourth wave of covid-19.
Mrs. Masebo says her ministry has allowed the recruitment process to begin immediately with other necessary formalities to be done later as the 2022 budget begins to get implemented.
She says there is need to get proactive in handling the fourth wave of the pandemic instead of waiting for January because there will be no one left in the facilities to look after covid patients if health personnel continue being exposed to the virus for longer periods of time without rest.
The minister was speaking when she toured the Levy Mwanawasa Teaching Hospital Covid-19 Isolation Ward today.
She assured that the New Dawn Administration will continue meeting the health personnel at their point of need because they are key in putting the pandemic under control.
And Mrs. Masebo has announced that 100 health workers will be recruited at the Levy Mwanawasa Teaching Hospital to cushion the challenge of lack of health staff at the institution.
And Ministry of Health Director Infectious Diseases Professor Lloyd Mulenga has said the Levy Mwanawasa Teaching Hospital has had a lot of cases where healthcare workers contracted covid-19, a situation which needs to be addressed by the recruitment of adequate personnel.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Masebo has announced that Zambia has recorded 3-thousand 6-hundred and 72 new confirmed cases of covid-19 from a total of 13-thousand 7-hundred and 21 tests conducted in the last 24 hours translating to 27 percent positivity.
She says 6-hundred and 77 recoveries and three covid associated deaths were recorded in the same period with the total number of active cases standing at 16-thousand 3-hundred and nine.