A monthlong nationwide strike by doctors in Zimbabwe has left thousands of patients without adequate treatment and many beds empty
The quest for better working conditions leaves striking doctors with a tough decision but they might not have to choose.
Patients are being turned away from hospitals as doctors strike for better wages, amid claims the state is refusing to even discuss their concerns.
Hundreds of Mozambique health workers wearing gags have marched in the capital Maputo as their strike for higher salaries extended into a third week.
Unhappy doctors threaten a go-slow, but critics say they have not explored all the available options.
The toyi-toyiing ”helps me to get rid of my frustrations at the hospital”, says one doctor.
Wage talks to settle the impasse between government and doctors are ”within the settlement range”, the bargaining council said on Tuesday.
More than 200 doctors have been fired for failing to report to work in different hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal, it was reported on Monday evening.
Sixteen doctors at a KZN hospital who allegedly ignored life-threatening emergencies during their strike face a probe by the HPCSA.
Eastern Cape doctors have been ordered to return to work by Monday or legal action would be taken, the health department said.
Talks on the salary dispute involving doctors and other workers in the medical field will resume on Monday, the health department said on Saturday.
Some of the country’s lowest paid doctors will receive up to a 53% pay increase, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said in Pretoria on Wednesday.
The Health Department is expected to table a new, revised salary offer for doctors, reports said on Wednesday.
Doctors kept their word and called off strike action in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng on Tuesday morning, the provincial health departments said.
The National Union of Mineworkers has called on government to urgently implement occupation specific pay rises for medical doctors.
The salaries of doctors and the conditions they work under in the public sector are awful, Cosatu secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi said on Friday.
The demand for a 50% salary increment for public sector doctors is not arbitrary, the South African Medical Association said on Wednesday.
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi chides doctors for planning to strike and warns that the government cannot meet their 50%-70% increase demands.
Angry medical practitioners staged daily lunch-hour pickets outside hospitals across the country last week.
Talks have broken down between the SA Medical Association and doctors disgruntled by the implementation of the Occupational Specific Dispensation.
Doctors at various hospitals in Johannesburg will picket over government’s poor salary offer during their lunch hour on Monday.
Medical practitioners warn that they could resume strike action if government does not respond to their demands.
Doctors at the Jubilee Hospital in North West have agreed to stop striking, but at George Mukhari Hospital, army doctors will stay in place to help.
Striking doctors have received letters of dismissal over a work stoppage which centres on grievances over pay and working conditions.