Zimbabwe’s health minister on Thursday urged doctors to end a pay strike that has crippled public medical care, saying they should return to work to save the lives of suffering patients.
Junior doctors at public hospitals began a work boycott three weeks ago to demand salary increases of more than 8 000% and higher vehicle loans — leaving hospital waiting rooms jammed with patients needing treatment.
They have since been joined by senior doctors, all but paralysing public medical care in the crisis-hit Southern African country.
”I am urging the doctors to come back to work because the patient is suffering, the Zimbabwean patient is suffering,” Health Minister David Parirenyatwa said in remarks broadcast on state radio.
”It is very, very critical that we don’t allow our patients in this country to die and that is why I am urging them to come back for their patients’ sake, because that is what they trained for — the other issues we can discuss,” he added.
But the doctors remained defiant, saying the government had not put anything on the table.
”We met again as doctors today [Thursday] and we unanimously agreed that no matter what, we will not go back to work until our demands are met,” Kudakwashe Nyamutukwa, head of the Hospital Doctors’ Association, told Reuters.
Political tensions
Analysts say strikes for higher wages could trigger wider work boycotts and spontaneous street protests, escalating political tensions.
Last week workers from electricity utility Zesa Holdings staged a brief work stoppage and disconnected large sections of Harare and the central business district to press management for better pay to cushion themselves against galloping inflation.
Zimbabwe’s inflation, the highest in the world, zoomed to a record 1 281% in December, setting the stage for more price increases.
At Parirenyatwa — Zimbabwe’s largest public health centre, named after the current health minister’s father — only three specialist doctors were attending to critically injured patients with the help of nurses, while the rest waited, hoping the strike would end.
”She can’t talk, eat or do anything … but there is no one attending to her,” said Rita Kamungeremu, pointing to her 23-year-old daughter, an Aids patient who lay motionless on the pavement near the hospital entrance.
The strike has worsened the situation at public hospitals, which are already grappling with shortages of critical drugs and a flight of doctors and nurses abroad for better paying jobs.
Parirenyatwa was quoted as saying the government had chosen not to invoke a law barring state employees who offer essential services, such as the army and police, from going on strike.
Under the law, the workers would face a jail term if convicted. The doctors said they were prepared to go to prison until their conditions of employment improved. — Reuters