92 fired nurses reinstated

About ninety two (92) nurses who were fired last year for staging a strike have been reinstated.
And about thirty four thousand four hundred and thirty four (34, 434) patients were attended to through the mobile outreach programme in the first quarter of 2014.

Health Minister Dr.Joseph Kasonde says government has in the first quarter of 2014 employed a total of ninety seven doctors, one hundred and seventy six nurses and twenty six paramedics.

Dr. Kasonde has told journalists during a media briefing in Lusaka today that the recruitment exercise for health professionals is a continuous process as more are expected to be employed in the second quarter.

Dr. Kasonde has also revealed that the Ministry of health has procured medical equipment worth one hundred and fourteen million, nine hundred and thirty nine thousand five hundred and thirty four kwacha (K114, 939, 534) which include the cardiac catherisation lab, laundry and kitchen equipment, and dental equipment among others.

The Health Minister has also disclosed that a total of three hundred and fifty three (353) cases of typhoid were recorded in the first quarter of 2014.

Dr.Kasonde says Lusaka recorded the highest number of Typhoid cases at 197 followed by Northwestern which recorded 90 cases,Copperbelt had 49, Northern Province recorded 12, while Muchinga and Luapula provinces recorded 2 cases each with Eastern province recording one case.

He adds that sixteen cases of Cholera were recorded from Mpulungu District in Northern Province and Chiengi District in Luapula.

Dr. Kasonde further states that twenty four cases of anthrax were recorded in the first quarter of 2014 in Kaoma, Senanga, Mongu and Shangombo.

He says the Ministry of Health has spent a total of three hundred and forty five thousand, one hundred and forty nine kwacha (K345, 149) in the control of these outbreaks.