Frontline health workers are appealing for a $10 000 risk allowance per month, as they battle Covid-19, which has affected five people in Zimbabwe so far. The proposal is for the allowance to be given only to those at work.
In addition, the workers have proposed that only healthcare
workers who can be provided with protective personal equipment (PPE) report for
work at their stations.
The proposals follow a commitment by Government earlier
this week that a risk allowance for the sector had been approved, while the
distribution of PPE, some of which was donated by Chinese businessman Jack Ma,
has began.
Government also committed to avail a substantial amount of
money for a vehicle loan scheme for the health workers. Nurses and doctors had
withdrawn their labour on Wednesday, demanding a risk allowance and PPEs.
The request by frontline health workers to have a risk
allowance, coincides with an announcement by EcoSure yesterday that it plans to
support the country’s national health delivery system by equipping frontline
medical staff with PPE, provide them with life and health insurance and safe
transport to and from work daily, for the next 12 months.
The Health Apex Council confirmed the need for a risk
allowance after a Health Services Bipartite Negotiating Platform held in Harare
on Thursday, where they insisted they were not on strike.
“We are not on industrial action. However, we do not
encourage the health workers to attend work without PPE,” said the health
workers in a statement. “Therefore, we propose that only health workers who can
be provided PPE by the MoHCC (Ministry of Health and Child Care) should report
for work at their stations since the hospitals are high risk areas on
rotational basis. The health workers proposed a flat $10 000 per month as risk
allowance for those at work.”
According to the statement, Government representatives were
taking up the proposal to their principals.
Cassava Smartech, the parent company of the EcoSure
insurance business’s CEO Mr Eddie Chibi yesterday said given the situation
Zimbabwe finds itself in, they wanted to ensure all frontline medical staff
were fully protected.
He said EcoSure was putting in place measures that gave the
health workers confidence as they carried out their duty of primary patient
care and as they saved lives.
EcoSure general manager Mr Godwin Mashiri said they would
immediately begin the process of providing support for all doctors and nurses,
who attend to their duties at this critical time.
“We are offering free Personal Protective Equipment for all
doctors and nurses who attend to their duties at this very critical time,” he
said. “We are also offering free Vaya transport to both nurses and doctors, so
they can commute to and from work in safe and sanitised vehicles.
“We will also be immediately offering life and health
insurance in the form of a cash benefit of $500 per day, for each day of
hospitalisation, and a lump sum benefit of $50 000 in the event of permanent
disability and eventual death caused by any accident.”
The package includes a cash benefit of up to $30 000 in the
event of death arising from any other cause apart from accidents, and 100
percent education scholarships for the children of any medical practitioner who
takes up this offer to work in public hospitals or clinics at this time, should
they pass on during this period.
The education scholarship would be administered by
Higherlife Foundation through its Capernaun Scholarship.
Higherlife Foundation — which is funded by the Econet group
of companies and by Delta Philanthropies, the social impact vehicle of the
Econet founder Mr Strive Masiyiwa and his family — has already been supporting
hundreds of doctors who signed up to a fellowship scholarship launched late
last year.
The fellowship, worth over $100 million, was offered amid a
nation-wide strike by doctors that had left thousands of patients desperate.
Herald
0 comments:
Post a Comment