The attrition rate for health care workers has been abnormally high over the last 12 to 24 months – Dr Lalabalavu

The attrition rate for health care workers has been abnormally high over the last 12 to 24 months and facilitated by many pull and push factors that includes emigration, the search for greener pastures, education, family welfare, higher salaries, and aggressive recruitment techniques by overseas recruitment agencies and local private hospitals.

In his ministerial statement on the achievements during the first 100 days, Health Minister, Dr Atonio Lalabalavu says the greatest challenge now is maintaining its human resource at an optimal level for the service they provide.

He says in the last 12 months, the Ministry has lost some 800 nurses from its workforce, which includes nurses who have moved to the Aspen Hospitals in Lautoka and Ba.

The Minister says the loss is also seen in other health care cadre such as doctors, pharmacists, laboratory technicians, medical imaging technologists and others.

He adds these losses impact their ability to deliver quality services and increase the burden for those who remain with the Ministry.

Dr Lalabalavu says to address this, the Ministry has been working hard in recruiting health care workers through the open recruitment process, where they recruited 206 nurses in November last year.

He says a further 18 nurses have been recruited after November, and another 162 registered nurses are expected to be recruited in May this year, followed by another cohort of 44 registered nurses in November, bringing the total number of registered nurses to be recruited to 206 this year.

He also says 237 nurse graduates will be recruited as intern nurses in June this year.

The Minister adds the Ministry will also establish 50 new nursing assistants and 50 new nursing aide positions, which will be advertised for recruitment to support their nursing teams at hospitals and health care facilities.

Dr Lalabalavu says they are also conducting capacity building for their workforce with the support of the central agencies of Government and supplemented by their development partners.

Responding to the Minister’s statement, FijiFirst MP Penioni Ravunawa says we must not forget that intern nurses were trained through the online platform during the COVID-19 period and they lack competencies in clinical skills.

He says intern nurses are also new in the profession and they will need a lot of mentoring.

Ravunawa says the FijiFirst government had fixed this in 2018 by creating incentives.