• There is need to ensure that labour protection is offered to the health professionals.
• They need to know what their conditions of service will be as they go to Angola.
• All the details have to be known by the health workers to avoid any speculations.

Zambia Union of Nurses Organization (ZUNO) has called for protection of health workers who will be given an opportunity to work Angola following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with that country.
Speaking in an interview with Money FM News, Union General Secretary Fray Michelo stressed the need to ensure that labour protection is offered to the health professionals because they need to know what their conditions of service will be as they go to Angola.
Mr. Michelo stated that there is also need to know what benefits will accrue to Zambia after exporting the health workers.
He added that all the details have to be known by the health workers that will go to Angola to avoid any speculations.
“The only thing that we would ask as a union is the protection of those people that would go to that country where an MoU has been signed. We hope some labour protection can be offered to them, they need to know even as they go what will be their conditions of service and what will be the benefit of the country that will be exporting the health workers.”
“All these details have to be known by the health workers that will go in this country so that there are no speculations and someone goes there motivated knowing that these are the conditions that I will enjoy,” Mr. Michelo stated.
Meanwhile, Mr. Michelo said the MoU signing between Zambia and Angola is a good move as it will help provide employment to the unemployed health workers.
He urged other countries to also come on board as the country has trained a lot of health workers in various institutions who cannot be absorbed by government and the private sector.
“That was unprecedented because it’s one of the first MoUs that we have done within the region as a country. So that would make our health workers easily access employment in Angola because we have the same health challenges. We know that as a country we have trained a lot of health workers in various institutions where the government is not able to absorb them in the system.”
“The private sector is also somehow saturated and we are having a lot of health workers without jobs, so countries who are not training a lot can come on board and sign these MoUs so that we have our own health workers go in those countries to offer support to the people in those countries and also offer technical support and training to the other would be health workers in that nation,” he said.
On Monday, Zambia and Angola signed a Memorandum of Understanding in the field of employment of health workers in the neighboring country.