Zimbabwe Doctors And Nurses Statement On Unpaid December 2015 Salaries

The Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) and the Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZINA) jointly receives with great shock, disbelief and disdain the late disbursement of December 2015 salaries for health workers. We maintain that it is unacceptable for health workers to be paid today after going through a horrendous festive season and  had reached alarming levels of socioeconomic deprivation.

We maintain that such levels of irresponsibility and uncaring attitudes should be discarded forthwith and health workers must regain their good status in society.
It can never be justified to pay health workers after most of them had started to fail to report for duty as they now lacked basic commodities and transport fares. We the doctors and nurses of Zimbabwe today jointly state that

* We shall never accept our salaries in any month that is outside the time frame worked. Salaries are a basic right and they must never be postponed into a different month. We demand an unconditional apology from the employer for the hardships we have endured as a result of their recklessness and juvenile planning

* We demand our outstanding bonuses on or before the 31st of January 2015. Health workers deserve to be paid the 13th cheque as they work for long extra unpaid hours during the night, weekends and holidays. Fiscal challenges cannot be an excuse as we had long proposed an alternative non cash incentives scheme.

* Our members will report for their duties as normal as soon as they access their cash from their accounts beginning tomorrow. We maintain that for this normalcy to be long lasting our January salaries and beyond must never be tampered with again.

Lastly we reiterate our commitment to serve Zimbabwe and we call upon our employer to equally regard the renumeration of health workers as a top national priority as it has a direct bearing on the quality of health care to all Zimbabweans. It is unpatriotic to let our health workers go without bus fare , sundries and basic meals particularly during the festive season.
For and On behalf of our health workers-By ZHDA and ZINA National Executive Committees

Source: ZHDA and ZINA National Executive Committees. Bulawayo24