Source: Nurses, doctors meet Zec over voting privileges – DailyNews Live
Bridget Mananavire 12 June 2017
HARARE – Health practitioners will today meet the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (Zec) to discuss ways in which they can exercise their voting
rights in the 2018 general election while on duty.
Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association president Edgar Munatsi said they
wanted full and unrestricted participation in the vote.
“We understand that we are under essential services, the same category
with the army and the police, and we want the privileges that they enjoy
to be extended to health professionals,” Munatsi told the Daily News.
“The privilege of postal voting should also be extended to us. The other
issue is the establishment of registration and voting facilities at
provincial and central hospitals. Hospitals do not scale down services
because there is an election, in fact we might be needed more
“Another issue we want to discuss is the issue of detained patients to be
allowed to vote, and we will discuss logistics of how this can be
enabled.”
Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZNA) and Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights
and other health professional associations will also be part of the
discussions.
ZNA secretary-general Enock Dongo said because health professionals’
services are required 24/7, there was need for provisions to exercise
their voting rights.
“Most of the time you are not deployed to work in your ward and since this
election will be ward- based, health workers will be away from their
wards, what is going to happen? Is there any way to accommodate us that is
feasible?” Dongo
asked.
The health professionals argued that increasing access to polling stations
will assist in “preventing interruption of service provision by health
professionals in exercising their right to vote as guaranteed in Section
67 of the Constitution.”
“Further, the increased access to polling centres will encourage
participation of the cadres in the process.”
COMMENTS