The Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors’ Association (ZHDA) yesterday
said it had set up a crowd-funding platform through their affiliate
associations to ease financial problems faced by its members, particularly
those who did not receive their salaries last week.
The doctors, who also claim they are receiving indirect
threats to force them to abandon their nearly two months’ strike, said the
non-payment of salaries had further impoverished them.
“The most recent assault has been the withholding of
October salaries for all doctors who have not been reporting to work due to the
very fact that they are financially liquidated,” ZHDA representative Tawanda
Zvakada said.
Health Services Board chairperson Paulinus Sikosana has,
however, denied reports that government suspended salaries for the striking
doctors, claiming that some doctors details were omitted by mistake.
“The HSB receives consolidated information from registers
compiled by individual hospitals. For senior doctors, this is based on an
on-call roster and as such if the doctor on-call was called to attend to
patients and did not come, they were considered to be absent from work,” he
said.
Addressing the media at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals
yesterday, Zvakada, who was flanked by other members of the ZHDA executive,
said while they acknowledged attempts by government in addressing their pleas,
the offers fell short of their expectations.
Although their employer dragged them to court which ordered
them to go back to work, the doctors have said they remain incapacitated to go
back to work.
“While the willingness to comply with the ruling is there,
we maintain that we remain physically and materially incapacitated,” Zvakada
said.
Of concern to doctors is the fact that they have received
threats.
“We as the ZHDA leadership, we feel there are indirect
threats that have been made towards us. We condemn such actions if indeed they
were directed to us or if there is anyone planning to do so,” they said.
The threats come three weeks after ZHDA president Peter
Magombeyi was allegedly abducted and tortured by suspected State security
agents and had to be flown to South Africa to receive further treatment.
Meanwhile, suspected Zanu PF members took to social media
yesterday describing the doctors’ strike as a political move being sponsored by
the United States government.
This followed President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s remarks last
week that there was a third force behind the doctors’ strike. He alleged that
his government had discovered that there were four or five leaders who went to
meetings at night and came back to influence others not to return to work.
The suspected Zanu PF members went on Twitter, accusing
human rights lawyer Doug Coltart of handing over US$19 300 to ZHDA spokesperson
Masimba Ndoro at Fishmonger Belgravia to cushion doctors who failed to receive
their salaries.
But Coltart refuted the allegations, accusing Zanu PF of
making desperate allegations to divert attention from the strike. Newsday
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