OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Wednesday 4.00pm.
DOCTORS in Zimbabwe’s state hospitals ended a crippling six-week strike Wednesday after accepting government promises on salaries and improved working conditions, a spokesman for the strikers said.
“We have signed an agreement and doctors will be going back to work immediately,” said Lincoln Shenje, secretary-general of the Hospital Doctors Association.
He said the doctors had been given a written commitment by government pledging a “significant restructuring” of their salaries from January 1 next year.
They had also been given “unequivocal reassurances” that their complaints regarding lack of basic equipment such as drugs, syringes and gloves would be addressed, Shenje said.
The strike had paralysed government hospitals, which sent patients home and closed facilities such as casualty and maternity wards, while emergency services were being run by a few consultants and expatriates.
The president of the Hospital Doctors Association, Nyasha Masuka, gave the first indication that the strike might end on Tuesday, when he said that the suffering and deaths caused by patients being turned away from hospitals could force doctors back to work.
“We feel that the wrong people are suffering,” Masuka said.
Shenje said Wednesday that although the suffering was regretted, the strike was a breakthrough” as patients would now benefit from better health services.
Earlier, the doctors had said they would remain on strike until President Robert Mugabe put in writing a pledge he made to double their salaries. –AFP