Nyusi pledges support for nurses

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Nyusi pledges support for nurses

7:52 CAT | 12 May 2017

Lusa (File photo)

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Friday reaffirmed his government’s willingness to support the country’s nurses, whom he described as a group that made great sacrifices but were always willing to help others at the most difficult moments of their lives.

Nyusi was marking International Nurses Day, 12 May, at a rally in Malema district in the northern province of Nampula.

He stressed that, although there were sometimes delays in paying nurses’ wages, they did not desert their posts, but were always ready to attend to the needs of patients. That, said Nyusi, was why nurses should deserve “all our respect and consideration. So we urge all Mozambicans to provide full support to nurses”.

“Sometimes, when a nurse gives us advice, we think he’s against us”, the President continued. “But the nurse isn’t against anyone when he says ‘wash your hands!’, because those who don’t wash their hands are at risk of catching diarrhoeal diseases, conjunctivitis and scabies”.

The best thing people can do, he said, is accept advice from nurses so that they do not contract diseases which can be easily avoided. “Let us accept the advice nurses give for the good of our individual and collective health”, he declared.

Malema is a district with a high prevalence of malaria, and so Nyusi urged his audience to use mosquito nets, and to eliminate pools of stagnant water near their homes where mosquitoes can breed.

In a message presented to Nyusi, Nampula nurses and other health professionals pointed out that the province only has 3,280 nurses for a population of 5.2 million inhabitants, which fell well short of meeting the needs of the population.

As is normal at rallies addressed by the President, there were requests that the government should build more schools, health centres, roads and bridges, and expand the water and electricity networks.

These concerns are in his heart, Nyusi replied, but they require funding. “This money won’t come from anywhere else”, he said. “It has to be produced from our own work. We have to continue to increase production in order to solve our problems”.

Source: AIM