Senior doctors at Zimbabwe’s state hospitals have joined junior doctors in a strike over pay that has left patients stranded at the country’s major medical centres, unions said on Friday.
The junior doctors first began their industrial action last week when they limited the number of patients that they treated, but the action soon escalated into an all-out strike.
”The new development is that the few doctors who were working while the junior doctors were on strike have also joined in,” Kudakwashe Nyamutukwa, president of the Hospital Doctors’ Association, told the media.
”Initially, there was a misunderstanding between junior and senior doctors, but as we speak there is consensus and everyone is on strike.”
Confused patients milled around or sat in corridors while others waited in the main hall at Harare’s Parirenyatwa Hospital, where nurses attended to emergency cases.
”I came here more than three hours ago and I was just told to wait,” said Brian Chimanga, who came to Harare’s Parirenyatwa Hospital for a leg fracture.
”I don’t even know whether I am going to see a doctor or not.”
A young woman accompanying her elderly father called on the government to address the doctors’ grievances swiftly, saying the strike was hurting poor patients.
The junior doctors are demanding that their salaries be reviewed from the current Z$56 000 ($224 United States) to Z$5-million a month, Nyamutukwa said.
They also want the government to up a car-allowance loan from Z$700 000 to Z$2,5-million.
Health Minister David Parirenyatwa told state radio, meanwhile, that he had met with representatives of the striking doctors and that they had agreed to return to work on Friday.
”We have looked at the challenges they are facing, especially the issues of salaries, accommodation [and] transport in terms of car loans,” Parirenyatwa said.
”We discussed this at length in great depth and we have agreed that they go back and should start work.”
But Nyamutukwa said the minister only met doctors who were working while others were on strike.
Zimbabwe is in the throes of a severe economic recession characterised by four-digit inflation, massive unemployment and chronic shortages of drugs in state hospitals and basic foodstuffs such as sugar and the staple cornmeal.
State health institutions have been hit by an exodus of key staff, including specialist doctors, pharmacists and nurses to countries such as Australia, Botswana, Britain, New Zealand and neighbouring South Africa. — Sapa-AFP