Minister ignores striking doctors

Minister ignores striking doctors

• Doctors strike over working conditions

• Zimbabwe loses half of health professionals

• Zim nurses face uncertain future in UK

• Zimbabwe doctors press on with strike

• 70% of Zim hospital staff quit

• Hospital fees up by 100 percent

• 'We just let them die'

• Doctors' pay hike buys 3 loaves

• Patient dies as fire guts Mater Dei

• Zimbabwe steps up nurse training

• Zimbabwe doctors strike over pay

• Mugabe's pay up by 14 percent

• Mugabe pay up 300 percent

By Staff Reporter

DOCTORS at Zimbabwe's state hospitals have gone on strike for better pay to combat galloping inflation, marooning sick patients in packed waiting rooms in the latest sign of the country's economic meltdown.

Economic analysts warned that workers in other sectors could also boycott work as they grapple with a deep recession, which critics blame on policies of Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwe president.

Today junior doctors at the country's major state hospitals intensified industrial action that started at the end of last month, and has now paralysed operations at major health institutions.

Only nurses were working with the help of senior doctors, who work on a part time basis because they also run private surgeries. Staff at private medical clinics, where fees are higher, did not join the strike.

At Harare's Parirenyatwa Hospital - Zimbabwe's largest hospital - only part-time doctors were working and attending to emergencies, according to an official notice at the hospital. Several patients lay on stretchers in a packed waiting room with no help in sight.

Some said they had been waiting for treatment for several days for everything from injuries to medical reviews in hospitals already hit by frequent shortages of medicines.

"The strike continues. If they (the government) give people the 400% salary increment we hear they have planned for this January, then it will intensify," Kudakwashe Nyamutukwa, the head of the Hospital Doctors Association, said. "The minister (of health) remains arrogant and refuses to talk to us. We served him with a letter five weeks ago and he has not responded."

David Parirenyatwa, the health minister, said he was not aware of the strike, which has affected operations at public health facilities used by the majority of the population. But Mugabe's government has singled out health workers among government employees barred from boycotting work because they offer essential services.

This is the second strike in seven months by the doctors who are demanding, among other things, salaries of up to five million Zimbabwe dollars ($20 000) from the current $88 000 ($352), as well as increased motor vehicle allowances. The Zimbabwe dollar is officially pegged at 250 to the US dollar, but trades at up to 3 000 on a thriving black market. - Reuters
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