Zimbabwe doctors go on strike
By NOZIPHO MASEKO
Published on: 12th August, 2009
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ZIMBABWE – HARARE – DOCTORS at Government hospitals have gone on strike pressing for an urgent review of their salaries to US$1 000 and the resuscitation of the car loan scheme.
The doctors are currently earning a salary of US$220 plus US$170 allowance from donors.
In their petition to the Health and Child Welfare Ministry the doctors contend that the salary and allowance
they are getting was not enough for their monthly needs.
Investigations revealed that provincial doctors had been on strike for the past two weeks before those based at Harare and Parirenyatwa Central Hospitals only downed their tools end of last week.
The doctors wrote to the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare seeking an increase in the allowance arguing that hospitals were beginning to generate some income that should be used to improve their salaries.
In an interview the president of the Hospital Doctors Association Dr Brighton Chizhande yesterday con-
firmed that the US$220 salary they were receiving from Government and US$170 allowance from donors was not enough to meet their monthly needs.
“The association wrote to Government with a proposal that Government review the salaries as our economy improves but there was no response. There has been a massive and overwhelming influx of patients at our central hospitals paying consultation fees, money for investigations, procedures and surgical operations,” said Dr Chizhande.
“We also urged donors who have pledged to support health workers to do so in a predictable manner while the hospital provides on call allowance, transport allowances, housing allowances and free medical attention to health workers.”
Dr Chizhande said the payment of the allowances would go a long way in retaining staff at the central hospitals and curb brain drain in the country.
Doctors at Government hospitals have been getting retention allowances from Crown Agency but are complaining that the payments were not consistent.
He said their plight had been worsened by the fact that retention allowances being paid to medical practitioners under the Global Fund were only applicable to doctors working at district hospitals.
They are also complaining that they are not getting housing allowance while the salaries they are getting are too little and are not enough to purchase cars on installments.
Government last month started paying civil servants salaries after more than five months giving them a $100 allowance.
The salaries that saw most civil servants getting between US$130 and US$200 have been widely condemned by workers’ representative groups as falling far below the poverty datum line.
Efforts to get a comment from Health and Child Welfare Minister Henry Madzorera were fruitless although an official with the ministry had forwarded the doctors’ grievances and proposals to treasury and was waiting for response.
