STATE hospitals in Zimbabwe’s main urban areas ran into crisis on Wednesday as the country’s government-employed junior doctors went on strike for more pay. Harare’s biggest health institution, Parirenyatwa hospital, is struggling to keep going and ambulances have been instructed to respond only to emergencies, said superintendent Christopher Tapfumaneyi. Senior private medical consultants were called in to help, the daily Herald newspaper quoted him as saying. The 1000-strong Hospital Doctors Association is backed by Health Minister Dr Timothy Stamps. “Our medical professionals in Zimbabwe are the best in Africa, if not in the world,” he said in the Daily News. “We have been taking advantage of them for too long. You cannot get people to work as slaves.” The strike is another blow to a state health system floundering under critical shortages of money, corruption and a continual skills drain as professional staff leave to work overseas. Junior doctors earn about Zimbabwe dollars 15000 (R2500) a month, awarded in 1996.
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