HARARE, May 8 (Reuters) - Nurses at Zimbabwe's major government hospitals are not reporting for work because they cannot afford transport costs due to low wages, the country's health minister said. David Parirenyatwa told the official Herald newspaper that many nurses at state-run hospitals were suffering, and their forced absence had dealt another blow to a public health system struggling under a severe economic crisis. Transport costs are rising in line with the country's galloping inflation, which at 2,200 percent is the highest in the world. Parirenyatwa said student nurses and nursing supervisors were staffing wards and attending to patients, but could not cope with the large numbers of people needing attention. "It is a very difficult situation to manage. Since about half of the nurses are not coming to work, it follows that service delivery at those hospitals is compromised," he said in comments published on Tuesday. The minister was not available for further comment. Nurses and doctors employed at government hospitals went on a lengthy strike earlier this year to press for higher wages, paralysing a public health system creaking under the burden of HIV/AIDS. The move forced President Robert Mugabe's government -- which faced the prospect of a full-scale strike by the civil service after teachers also boycotted work -- to increase wages twice in as many months to pacify restive government workers. Parirenyatwa said his ministry was seeking additional funding to review health workers' wages. Nurses employed by the government earn about 550,000 Zimbabwean dollars ($2,200 at the official rate but $22 at the black market rate). Many health professionals have left the country for better paying jobs overseas. Workers in the southern African country have borne the brunt of a severe economic crisis, blamed on Mugabe's policies and marked by record inflation, 80 percent unemployment and persistent shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food. Mugabe denies mismanaging the economy, which he says has been hurt by sanctions imposed by Western countries.
