via HSB wants Sadc salaries for local doctors | The Herald October 22, 2014
THE Health Services Board has recommended that treasury pays health workers salaries benchmarked against those prevailing in the SADC region. On average, doctors in the region earn around $3 000. Doctors are threatening to go on strike citing poor remuneration. The position by the HSB follows a meeting with the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association in Harare on Saturday.
The meeting was chaired by Dr Lovemore Mbengeranwa and other senior officials from the HSB.
The ZHDA was represented by its president Dr Fortune Nyamande and senior members from the association.
Minutes of the meeting show that the HSB recommended payment of salaries commensurate with those in the sadc region but treasury has no money.
“The ZHDA was advised that the HSB was committed to paying competitive salaries to members of the health service in an effort to attract and retain qualified staff.
“To this end, the HSB had recommended that treasury considers salaries for the health sector that are benchmarked against those prevailing in the SADC region,” read the minutes.
Junior doctors earn about $300 a month and are demanding $1 200.
In a statement on Monday, Dr Nyamande said his association was consulting its constituency on the way forward after Government failed to guarantee them a salary increment.
“The Health Services Board and the Ministry of Health and Child Care refused to guarantee that there shall be an urgent review of our basic salary.
“In this regard they highlighted that the only negotiating forum for such increases is through the bipartite negotiating forum and they have also submitted requests to treasury awaiting approval in the 2015 budget,” reads the statement.
The doctors were also demanding that Government takes measures to protect them from a possible outbreak of Ebola which has killed over 4 000 people in West Africa and is fast spreading to other regions.
But minutes on the meeting between ZHDA show that Government assured the health workers that it was doing everything possible to protect them from the virus.
“To this end, the Honourable Minister of Health and Child Care had engaged stakeholders at national level to ensure adequate information, training and resources to curb the threat posed by this virus,” reads the minutes.
Government, through the HSB, has dismissed the industrial action threat by doctors as illegal.
HSB spokesperson Mr Nyasha Maravanyika yesterday said the meeting the HSB held with doctors over the weekend was not a negotiating forum.
“The meeting the board held with ZHDA was not a negotiating platform.
“It was a familiarisation and engagement platform where the board wanted to create rapport and share information with the new ZHDA executive on issues pertaining to grievances procedures and how the board previously interacted with the ZHDA,” he said.
“After hearing their queries and grievances which the board is fully committed to addressing, the board then told ZHDA to go and amplify and detailise the grievances for presentation and submission to the Health Service Bipartite Negotiating Panel where the association has a representative.
“As far as we are concerned the board is still waiting for more detailed documents on their grievances.”
COMMENTS