PARIRENYATWA GROUP OF HOSPITALS senior doctors go on strike over sundries and drugs shortages

PARIRENYATWA GROUP OF HOSPITALS senior doctors go on strike over sundries and drugs shortages

On Tuesday 12/3/19 Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals was thrown into turmoil when Specialist consulting doctors went on strike, demanding that the Zimbabwe Mnangagwa government must improveme the supply of consumables and equipment. They declared that they will only attend to “dire emergencies” as the government negotiates in bad faith with doctors.

This is a first, as , previously , Junior doctors led strikes but on Tuesday, the strike was initiated by junior doctors at the Parirenyatwa group of hospitals who decided to limit the services in place to dealing with dire emergencies only as, available resources are not expected to be adequate for the emergency service provision beyond the end of the month of March 2019.

According to consultants they actually persuaded junior doctors to call off their strike in November 2018 but due to government negotiating in bad faith, the shortages of basic essential drugs, equipment and sundries, medical consumables and equipment has grown worse since December 2018.

This has had a serious impact by severely compromising in the safety and working conditions of hospital staff who now have a limited capacity to deliver services to patients, compromising patient care, placing patient health and lives at risk in the hospitals, the very place meant to restore health and life.

Since the start of 2019, the doctors have failed to return to normal service, particularly in anaesthesia, surgery and critical care as a result of these government failures.

The situation is now so bad that , for emergencies, patients wait for theatre is now unnecessarily too long as their relatives have to privately source for the required supplies.

Simple conditions like appendicitis and diabetic foot ulcers g for days without the neccessary antibiotics leading to complications.

If the doctor strike spreads to other hospitals, the Zimbabwe’s health system may be plunged into another deep crisis once junior doctors join the industrial action.

The consultants, would be complicit in the deaths of patients, by operating continuously under present conditiond , hence the need for an urgent meeting with the Zimbabwe Health Minister Obadiah Moyo . Sibusiso Ngwenya

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