Zimbabwe’s health minister has ordered striking junior doctors back to work, accusing them of ”biting the hand that feeds” them, reports said on Monday.
The doctors, based at two major hospitals in Harare, have been on strike since last week, ever since they were informed they were going to be deployed to district hospitals for a year, said the state- controlled Herald newspaper.
District hospitals are unpopular with local medical staff because there are severe shortages of drugs and medical equipment, as well as sub-standard accommodation facilities.
”How can I talk to people who are not at work?” said Health Minister David Parirenyatwa.
”If they are serious then they should go to work, then we will talk.”
He said the junior doctors had an ”obligation” to serve their country.
After completing five years of medical studies, Zimbabwe’s junior doctors are supposed to undergo two years of training at what are known as central hospitals, such as the two in Harare.
But last week the doctors were informed that they were being deployed out to the countryside to district hospitals.
”They are refusing to go,” said the CEO of Harare’s Parirenyatwa Hospital, Thomas Zigora.
So unwilling are Zimbabwean doctors to work in district hospitals that many now rely on expatriate doctors from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cuba. But this has proved problematic because of the language barrier.
Junior doctors are also reported to be dissatisfied with their current salaries, which stand at Z$60-million (US$600 at the official rate, but less than a quarter of that at the widely used parallel market rate) per month.
”These people are trained courtesy of the public’s money, but now they do not want to give back to the same people that trained them. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you,” Parirenyatwa was quoted as saying. — Sapa-dpa