JUNIOR doctors in public hospitals have issued a two-week
strike notice demanding a review of their salaries and for the supply of
personal protective equipment (PPE) against the coronavirus (Covid-19)
pandemic.
This comes at a time when salary negotiations between
senior doctors, who also issued a two-week strike notice a week ago, and the
government were deadlocked after the latter insisted on paying them in local
currency instead of the United States dollars they were demanding.
In a letter to the Health Services Board (HSB), the
Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) said junior doctors had for the
past month been working with the hope that the government would address their
plight of lack of adequate PPE and poor remuneration.
“As the ZHDA, we feel that it is now time that the employer
takes these life-threatening concerns seriously. We hereby engage the employer
to address these chronic issues, including that the remuneration of health
workers should be urgently looked into and the Covid-19 allowances reviewed to
meaningful figures in a stable currency.
“Personal protective equipment must be readily available
upon request and a framework to support infected health workers, including a
self-isolation allowance, medicines and food must be put in place with
immediate effect.
“Should the employer fail to address these issues within 14
days of receipt of this letter, the ZHDA and its members will be forced to
suspend operations at public health institutions,” wrote the ZHDA.
“According to the Health ministry updates, about 200 health
workers have tested positive to Covid-19, forcing some hospital departments to
shut down as the government continued to dither on its promise to avail
adequate PPE.
“Doctors who were trying to hold the fort in hospitals
continue being caught between a rock and a hard surface. Furthermore, the
employer continues to peddle lies to members of the public that there are
adequate health workers in the hospitals yet the hospitals are barely
functioning. The health system in Zimbabwe is on its knees.
“The Covid-19 cases
are on the rise amongst health workers and very little is being done to address
the situation. Personal protective equipment in public hospitals is scarce, and
some doctors were attending to patients without protection in efforts to save
lives,” the doctors said.
The ZHDA added that
the US$75 monthly Covid-19 allowance was more than a mockery to their suffering
members as they were being daily exposed to the virus.
“Our infected
colleagues are not being taken care of despite being isolated in their homes
without any form of support or concern from the employer.
“Our salaries are
not enough to have savings and cater for our own well-being should we contract
Covid-19, and fellow health workers with Covid-19 are being restricted to their
own houses, footing their own health bills. Their bravery and commitment is
going unnoticed,” the ZHDA said.
Last year, the
junior doctors embarked on a crippling strike which lasted for more than three
months over poor remuneration and working conditions. Daily News
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