Doctors call off strike after pay deal

Doctors call off strike after pay deal

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By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE'S doctors have halted a two-month strike over pay that plunged the country’s creaking health system into crisis, the health minister said.

David Parirenyatwa said the government had agreed a pay deal with the doctors, who wanted better salaries to keep pace with Zimbabwe’s roaring inflation.

Nurses and paramedics had also joined the strike, paralysing a public health system already stretched by the burden of HIV/Aids, but they returned to work last month after agreeing a separate pay deal.

“That is now a thing of the past. Everything is back to normal,” Parirenyatwa said Saturday.

Government doctors stopped work in December demanding an 8,000% wage increase, while government could only offer a 300% hike.

Before the industrial action, state doctors earned Z$56,000 a month, worth about $224 at the official exchange rate but about $7 on the black market.

The president of the Hospital Doctors Association, Kuda Nyamutukwa, confirmed doctors had agreed a pay deal with the government, but declined to give details of the new wages.

“Everyone is back at work now ... the (Health Services) Board has offered us a new pay package,” Nyamutukwa said.

President Robert Mugabe’s government has come under increased pressure from workers who have borne the brunt of a deepening economic crisis, which has seen inflation soaring to almost 1,600%.

The authorities last week averted a full-scale strike by government employees when it awarded them the second wage increase in as many months after teachers - who make up the majority of civil servants - began a strike.

The government has begun talks with trade unions and business leaders over a proposed wage and price hike it hopes will arrest galloping inflation.

Analysts have warned rising discontent over the economic meltdown in Zimbabwe could trigger street protests against Mugabe’s government. – Reuters
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