Zim Gvt Doctors Vow To Unleash ‘Devastating , Coordinated’ National Strike

GOVERNMENT doctors have vowed a nationwide “devastating and coordinated” industrial action before the end of the year, accusing their employer of failing to fulfil pay promises made late last year.

“When a doctor, who is tasked with the huge responsibility of delivering God given lives survives from hand to mouth, it becomes inevitable that doctors will not be ashamed to be labelled radicals.

“Therefore, the health ministry should brace for a nationwide, devastating and coordinated industrial action,” Zimbabwe Hospital Detectors Association President, Fortune Nyamande, told reporters Wednesday.

Junior and mid-level doctors late last year embarked on an industrial action which almost paralysed the country’s health delivery system.

Government then partly resolved some of the problems which the doctors had raised by promising to review their salaries which still remain at $280 per month.

The administration also promised to revise housing allowances for doctors working in government hospitals, among a host of other incentives.

“These promises now rank in our national archives where the promise of the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project has been equally archived,” complained Nyamande.

He said the Health Services Board (HSB) was to blame for not pushing their plight to the government.

“Rentals have been increased in most government provided accommodation at both urban and district hospitals, despite the deteriorating infrastructure,” Nyamande added.

“Doctors in Zimbabwe continue to wallow in the gallows of poverty and deprivation while the HSB is folding its hands and has become an irrelevant and useless extension of government bureaucracy.” source-newzimbabwe

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photo-Zimbabwe health and child welfare minister, David Parirenyatwa