ZIMBABWE’S troubled health sector is headed for paralysis after doctors, radiographers, nurses and other specialists yesterday boycotted on-call and night duties citing incapacitation.
This came as government is struggling to end teachers’
class boycott which started when schools opened for the first term on February
7.
Workers in the public and private sectors are demanding
foreign currency-denominated salaries, arguing that their Zimdollar earnings
were being eroded by inflation.
In a letter dated February 18, addressed to the Health Services
Board (HSB)’s acting executive director Anglebert Mbengwa, the Zimbabwe
Government Radiographers Association, the Zimbabwe Public Health Association,
Zimbabwe Health Workers Union and the Zimbabwe Nurses Association (Zina)
declared incapacitation.
“Reference is made to the above said subject that the
health workers associations having the negotiation space closed for them for
almost a year now have resolved to declare incapacitation of its members,” the
unions said in their joint letter.
Civil servants have rejected government’s recent salary
offer of a 20% increase, US$100 and other non-monetary benefits. They are
demanding a pre-October 2018 salary of US$540 or its equivalent in local
currency.
They added: “Non-claimable health sector specific allowances
agreed in the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) 2 of 2018 that is on-call,
call out/standby night duty, nurse managers and special health allowances have
not been reviewed for two years now. Need we remind the employer that these
allowances are based on work done during odd hours with little compensation
offered by the employer.
“COVID-19 risk allowances were last reviewed in 2020 and as
such are now very negligible considering the exposure of health workers during
this pandemic. Health workers never stopped reporting for duty even when most
public servants were at home.
“These allowances ceased in 2020 and have now contributed
to the en masse exodus of health workers. There is little incentive to continue
going to work in the health sector. Vehicle loan scheme … was agreed upon in
CBA1 of 2019 and it was unilaterally stopped by the employer. 20% cost of
living adjustment… made in February 2022 provided little relief to the
socio-economic status of the health workers.”
Health worker unions have previously complained that their
parent ministry headed by Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga had closed
communication channels and imposed tough conditions to stop them from engaging
in job action.
In May 2021, government gazetted new provisions under the
Health Services Act which sought to bar nurses and doctors from going on strike
for three continuous days.
Under the measures, emergency services such as intensive
care unit and casualty services should not be interrupted. This means that
nurses and doctors assigned to those units could not go on strike.
HSB chairperson Paulinus Sikosana yesterday, however, said
the workers’ grievances had been addressed.
“Their issues have been addressed,” Sikosana told NewsDay.
Health deputy minister John Mangwiro’s mobile phone rang
unanswered while Information minister Monica Mutsvangwa said she was in a
meeting last night.
Health ministry spokesperson Donald Mujiri was also not
answering his phone.
The health workers said they were not on strike, but
incapacitated to report for duty.
“We are not on strike. We have duties as health workers and
these duties are strenuous and those duties for some time health workers were
subsiding government. It is the responsibility of government to make sure that
healthy workers are taken care of,” Zina president Enock Dongo said.
Zimbabwe Professional Nurses’ Union president Robert
Chiduku added: “Government has ignored health workers for the past two years
and that constitutes negligence on the part of government. The way forward is
for the government to pay US dollar salaries to healthcare workers.”
The latest strike action came at a time when the sector had
been hit by a mass exodus of health professionals to countries such as the
United Kingdom, South Africa, Botswana and Australia.
Health experts said the job action by health workers would
have “serious repercussions on ordinary people’s health”.
“Health workers accept that they should not put their
patients at risk by engaging in industrial action, but they also feel strongly
that there must be a speedy, fair and impartial procedure for resolving
disputes. Long-standing grievances simply should not be allowed to build up,”
Community Working Group on Health executive director Itai Rusike said.
“The withdrawal of night duties could have serious
repercussions on ordinary people’s health, including avoidable and preventable
deaths. We call upon nurses and the
government to engage in a serious and honest dialogue for the sake of the
suffering patients.”
In 2018, Chiwenga fired thousands of nurses who went on
strike following a salary deadlock. Newsday
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