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| National |
| Nurses say pay raise small |
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by
Bright Sonani, 21 April 2005
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14:07:07
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Nurses Association of Malawi has described the 52 percent salary increase for medical professionals in the Ministry of Health as ‘too little’ to check braindrain in the health sector.
In her reaction to the increments the association’s president Dorothy Ngoma said on Wednesday that to check braindrain there was need to have an overhaul of the whole salary structure for the medical staff.
“Considering the current salaries for junior nurses, the increment is negligible and too small to check braindrain. You cannot check braindrain by adding K2,000 ($18) or K3,000 to somebody’s salary,” said Ngoma.
The increment has pushed the lowest paid grade among the medical profession staff from K5,000 a month to K12,000 gross pay and the highest grade from K100,000 to K159,000 which include professional and special medical allowances which government removed last year.
Ngoma said it was sad that members of Parliament get more than K200,000 monthly salary and almost K8,000 as sitting allowances while nurses have the same K8,000 as a monthly salary.
She said the best approach to check braindrain was for government to analyse the bread-basket to see how much one can survive and also look at other aspects such as training, better uniforms, protective wear, and provision of food and transport during night duty.
“However, we thank the donors who are assisting us in the programme and also the Minister of Health for working very hard. It is a good start considering our minimal resources,” she said.
Principal Secretary for Health Wesley Sangala in an interview on Wednesday said the programme will be implemented in phases and various options will also be looked into as a means of checking the braindrain.
He said the British government has already pumped in 50 million pounds sterling for the six-year programme and government is expecting more assistance from World Bank, Global Fund, Norwegian and Swedish governments and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
In a statement the ministry said the increment will only apply to hands-on professional cadres such as medical doctors, nurses, clinical officers, medical and pharmacy assistants, pharmacy, laboratory, radiology and dental technicians, physiotherapists, environmental health officers and medical engineers.
The statement said other support staff will be catered for by the on-going government pay reform policy.
“The donors who are funding the programme have their own conditions and they are looking at which people are leaving the health sector for greener pastures abroad. These other people will be included in the next round,” said Sangala, explaining why the other staff have been left out.
Sangala said the decision to leave out the other workers was arrived at to protect the tremendous investment in the health sector by trying to maintain professionals who would ably implement various health projects.
“The people running the health services are not administrators or accounts. But we also have to consider that we have limited resources, we have even left out certain health professionals like health surveillance assistants because of resources,” he said.
The new salary structure has factored what the ministry calls a salary top-up of 52 percent from grade of technical assistance (TA) to P2 and professional and special medical allowances in the ranges of K1,000 to K4,100 with the highest going to P8 and PO/CTO grade.
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