Nurse shortage hits Malawi

  1. Posted on Tuesday 11 May 2010 - 19:46
    Sam Banda Junior
    Image of Sam Banda Junior
    Sam Banda Jnr, AfricaNews reporter in Blantyre, Malawi
    Malawi is in need of more nurses and midwives to offer better reproductive health services in hospitals. National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives of Malawi (NONM) said recently that the number of nurses in the country was still low and that it needed to triple if health services are to be improved.
    malawi pregnant woman
    Reports say that currently the southern African country has about 8,000 nurses and midwives and that only half are at the bedside when women are giving birth.

    “There is a critical shortage of nurse midwives and this inadequate number has resulted in women delivering on their own,” said NONM Project Manager Harriet Kapyepye.

    The past years have seen many nurses and doctors leave the country for overseas in search of greener pastures.

    But a senior professor at University of Malawi’s College of Medicine said many doctors and nurses were now coming back to work in the country.

    Nurses are trained at University of Malawi’s Kamuzu College of Nursing, Malawi College of Health Science and Christian Health Association of Malawi colleges.

    Kapyepye however, said there were several problems which was decreasing the number of nurses in the country citing death, retirement and resignations.

    The decrease in number of the intake of students to pursue nursing is also said to be bringing about the shortage.

    UNFPA and Confederations of Midwives said during the International Day of Midwives that there was need to have more nurses in order to fight maternal death which is one of the biggest problem in African countries.

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