Zimbabwe has only 12 psychiatric doctors in public health institutions says health deputy minister

Responding to questions from The Chronicle, Health deputy minister, Dr Aldrin Musiiwa said the country only has 12 psychiatric doctors at a time when mental cases are on the increase. He also revealed that Zimbabwe does not have the capacity to train psychiatric doctors but can only train nurses.

Said Musiiwa:

It’s true that we have about 12 psychiatrists for our public health institutions which is not so much of a shortage though we could do with more. The problem we have as a country is that we only have the capacity of training psychiatric nurses and not doctors which has affected us a lot. We have always relied on other countries for training and as we know Government salary scales are lower than other countries so it’s very difficult to retain them.

More: Chronicle