Higherlife Foundation has extended by an additional six months the free transport programme for nurses and doctors employed at public healthcare institutions in Zimbabwe.
The extended offer comes a day after the Foundation extended an offer to pay doctors in the public healthcare sector through a special medical fellowship established by Higherlife late last year, in order to enable doctors to go back to work following a long and debilitating strike that has paralysed the country’s public healthcare delivery system.
At the close of business yesterday the Foundation said close to a 1000 doctors had signalled their intention to take up the offer by collecting the Fellowship forms. It said over 800 had completed and returned the forms to take up the offer, which is open until close of business tomorrow (Friday, January 24, 2020).
In December last year, a total of 362 mainly junior doctors took up the Fellowship offer from Higherlife Foundation and have already gone back to work.
In the statement yesterday, Higherlife Foundation said its focus remained on patient care. It said:
In line with our commitment to putting the patient first, we are pleased to announce that our free Vaya transport programme for nurses and doctors, which has been in place for the past 6 months, has been further extended and will run through to July 2020.
The Foundation said along with free transport, its affiliate businesses (in which the Masiyiwa family has interests) would “continuing to provide free water deliveries to all public hospitals and clinics in Harare”.
The Foundation will continue to support the country’s healthcare system and ensure “our public medical staff are well resourced to carry out their work”.
