Source: Patients suffer as doctors strike – DailyNews Live
Farayi Machamire 17 February 2017
HARARE – There is no solution in sight to the standoff between striking
doctors and the government, despite the crass threats of dismissals by
panicking authorities.
The doctors have been on industrial action since Wednesday, to press the
government to honour its promises of improving their working conditions.
But stung by the strike, the government has said it will terminate the
services of all doctors who will continue to stay away from work – a
threat that has failed to move the doctors.
Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals clinical director Noah Madziva warned on
Wednesday that any doctor who put the health of patients at risk by
striking would face dire consequences.
“Every citizen has a right to good health care…therefore anyone who
voluntarily withdraws his or her services will be removed from the duty
roaster.
“The same will not be allowed to enter the wards or to see any patients
until reinstatement upon submission of application to return to duty.
“The operations directorate will conduct a roll call at 0900hrs every
morning. Anyone not available at the time will be deemed not available for
service and subject to the above-mentioned arrangements,” warned Madziva.
But the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) said doctors would
continue with their strike despite the threats.
“We have noted with utter disappointment the new tactics by various
clinical directors . . . that instead of engaging doctors and try to find
solutions to our current demands, they have reverted to threats and
victimisation.
“We inform all our members that a document circulating with threats is the
same document that was used to intimidate people just a few years ago.
Threatening is a sign of fear, a last ditch attempt at resolving a problem
without engaging.
“We will not waiver. To the ministry of Health and other responsible
authorities, we urge them to respond to our needs quickly, so that
normalcy returns to our hospitals,” ZHDA said.
Doctors want the government to revise upwards, to a minimum of $720, call
allowances for the least paid doctors, and that the Health Services Board
urgently implements the agreed duty-free framework for all government
doctors.
The country’s public health sector is grappling with myriad problems,
including having to contend with shortages of critical drugs and
antiquated hospital equipment.
Despite these humongous problems, President Robert Mugabe’s misfiring
government has once again allocated a measly budget to the health services
sector this year.
In his budget presentation in December, Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa
reduced the vote for health from $331 million to a disappointing $282
million – a figure that falls way short of meeting the big demands of the
public health sector.
Recently, hospitals warned that they were left with two weeks’ supply of a
major drug used during surgical operations – after major drug supplier,
GSK, pulled out of the Zimbabwean market last year.
Last year, major referral hospitals also had to suspend many services as a
result of the shortage of drugs, including painkillers – exposing how much
things have fallen apart in the country since the early 2000s.
United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) and Harare Central Hospital were among the
major health facilities that had to suspend normal services as a result of
drug shortages, including pethidine – a synthetic compound used as a
painkiller, especially for women in labour and during Caesarean
operations.
And Binga District Hospital, which is situated in one of Zimbabwe’s
poorest regions, was last year also forced to scale back its services as a
result of water and electricity shortages.
Responding to the country’s worsening health crisis, the MDC said it was
alarmed by the “lack of concern and empathy” on the part of Zanu PF.
“The ministry of Health and Child Care has adopted a very insensitive and
uncaring attitude to the concerns that are being raised by the striking
doctors. Our medical doctors are severely over-worked and thoroughly
underpaid.
“At a time when . . . Mugabe and members of his inner circle always travel
to Singapore, India and some other such far-away places seeking medical
treatment, the Zanu PF regime is showing complete and utter disregard for
the plight of the masses and our striking medical doctors.
“Patients are stranded and in fact there is preventable loss of life that
is taking place in our various public health institutions because there
are no medical doctors to attend to patients,” MDC spokesperson Obert Gutu
said.
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