The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu Senior Reporter
A BULAWAYO man is up in arms with the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) management for allegedly withholding his examination results for the past four years because he wrote his name on an examination answer script, Sunday News can reveal. Mr Costa Matyavira was the best student nurse in the UBH 2008 intake but has never been employed as he has no certificate.
He has since aired his grievances through his legal representative.
“Matyavira is a former student at UBH where he qualified as a member under Section 15 of the Health Services Act Chapter 15.06.
“Having been a Group B student of 2008, the aggrieved completed his training on the 31st of July 2011. He sat for the State final examination on 18 and 19 March in 2011, results which where nullified on account of writing his name on a supplementary answer sheet he had requested following the completion of the book answer sheets,” reads a letter from his lawyer to the Nurses Council of Zimbabwe in part.
After he was disqualified, the then acting principal tutor proposed that Mr Matyavira re-writes the paper, an undertaking that he did in protest, following an initial attempt to assert his right to register as a general nurse.
Mr Matyavira said he wrote to the Nurses Council of Zimbabwe requesting his issue be heard and the response came back 12 days shy of sitting for the July 2011 final examination. He was then told to prepare for the re-write.
The legal representative said the nullification of Mr Matyavira’s results should have triggered an inquiry by the acting principal tutor, an undertaking that he alleges she chose to ignore.
He further said a second and very real element of prejudice arose through allowing Mr Matyavira to partake in a re-write of the nullified paper, knowing very well that he had passed the said paper and was told of the results before a class of students.
This disclosure is said to be unethical as it is not in sync with the Nurses Council of Zimbabwe’s constitution and general professional etiquette.
“Why tell a student that he had passed the exams and at the same time tell him to sit for a re-write,” the lawyer questioned.
This, he said, created needless anxiety on Mr Matyavira’s part and further said failure to facilitate his registration with the Nursing Council of Zimbabwe was in violation of his rights.
Mr Matyavira also wrote to Mrs Muriel Mothobi, the registrar at the Nurses Council, in May 2014 seeking to get audience over his issue but to no avail.
Sunday News is in possession of the letter in which he is appealing for a resolution.
UBH chief executive officer Mrs Nonhlanhla Ndlovu said she was aware of the case but had no solution to the problem.
The CEO acknowledged that the former student raised the issue with the school and distanced the principal tutor from the issue, saying she had nothing to do with examinations.
“The principal tutor has nothing to do with State examinations, dialogue must be between the student and the Nurses Council of Zimbabwe and they informed us that the issue had been put to rest,” she said.
The CEO further said examinations had set rules and those should have been followed by Mr Matyavira.
Mrs Mothobi said the Nurses Council did not deal with unregistered nurses.
“We are regulators, we deal with nurses who have passed their exams, and these will be registered nurses. The school should know better about this issue,” she said.
Mrs Mothobi said students who fail have to sit for supplementary examinations and are not registered with the council.
She, however, revealed that UBH was hiding behind a finger and should explain the circumstances behind the issue.
“Varikutiza nyaya (they are running away from something), the school should know better as they recruit and train these students. Results are sent to the school of nursing, they know exactly what happened,” she said.
She said the council did not withhold results for any reason unless instructed by the school of nursing and further said they did not withhold results for such a long time.
