At least 250 Zimbabwean medical interns have gone on strike at the financially troubled country’s state hospitals, demanding a more than 700% pay increase, a spokesperson said on Monday.
”The strike started off slowly on Thursday last week, but now everyone has joined in,” said Kudakwashe Nyamutukwa, president of the Hospital Doctors’ Association.
He told Agence France-Presse that doctors at two hospitals in the south-western second city of Bulawayo also downed stethoscopes on Monday, saying ”initially they were not part of it. They have now realised our grievances are real.”
Junior doctors are demanding that their salaries be reviewed from the current Z$57-million (US$563) to Z$500-million a month, Nyamutukwa said, which constitutes an increase of 777%.
The intern doctors also wanted the government to revise a car allowance loan from Z$50-million to Z$2-billion.
In Zimbabwe, hit by hyper inflation hovering just below 1 200% and fuel and forex shortages, a second-hand car retails for around Z$600-million.
The doctors added they were against forced deployments to district hospitals, where there were no drugs, equipment or decent accommodation.
”The salaries we are getting cannot even buy a wheelchair. How can a doctor survive on Z$57-million, yet the poverty line is above Z$62-million?” Nyamutukwa asked.
Zimbabwe’s Deputy Health Minister, Edwin Muguti, said government was expecting doctors to go back to work and that the interns had to follow laid-down grievance procedures.
”How can we talk to people who are not at work?” Muguti told Agence France-Presse.
”Why can’t doctors we train also realise that they have an obligation to give back to the communities by offering their services?” Health Minister David Parirenyatwa told the state-owned Herald newspaper.
Zimbabwe’s public health institutions been hit by an exodus of key staff including specialist doctors, pharmacists and nurses to countries such as Australia, Botswana, Britain, New Zealand and South Africa where working conditions are better. — Sapa-AFP