Hundreds of nurses at Zimbabwe’s state hospitals have called off a strike after the government promised to address their demands for steep pay increases, according to a newspaper report.
The government said it would respond to the nurses’ demand for a 7 000% increase within one week.
”We urge our all members on collective job action to go back to work … while we await a response from the [health] minister,” the head of the Zimbabwe Nurses Association, Oslina Tagutanazvo, told the state-run Herald.
Nurses here earn a minimum gross monthly pay of Z$138 446 Zimbabwe dollars, which is barely enough to buy a month’s basic groceries for an average Zimbabwean family of about five.
On the parallel market rate, the nurses’ salary is equivalent to less than $25 a month.
The nurses went on strike on Monday, following doctors who have been away from work since last week demanding an 80-fold pay hike from their gross monthly salary of Z$378 000 dollars ($473).
On Tuesday the government deployed military doctors and nurses to the hospitals to reinforce consultant medical staff brought in by the government from Cuba and the Democratic Republic of Congo to tend to patients at the affected hospitals. — Sapa-AFP