Junior doctors strike over poor salaries
By Lance Guma
01 June 2007.

Junior doctors from the country’s government hospitals began an official strike Friday over low salaries. This is the second strike in 6 months although they have also been engaging in on and off small-scale strikes inbetween. Amon Siveregi who heads the Hospital Doctors Association told journalists that the strike was now in full swing and that general hands in the hospitals had also joined in. The doctors want their salaries to be raised to Z$70 million from the current Z$2,4 million including allowances. They also want a one off payment of US$3000 in foreign currency for vehicle loans.

It’s reported that officials at Parirenyatwa are turning away patients who are not in need of emergency treatment. What is compounding the problem is that most nurses are not turning up for work because they are also unhappy with their poor salaries, which cannot even cover basic transport costs to work. Most employees in the country are struggling to survive under the weight of an inflation rate officially pegged at 3,700 percent but which most experts believe has already surpassed 10,000 percent.

Our correspondent Simon Muchemwa visited Harare Hospital and says almost all staff there have joined the strike. This includes canteen staff, general hands, cashiers and nurses. A policeman at the hospital confirmed to Muchemwa that over 30 bodies remained uncollected in the wards and relatives who went to the mortuary to collected their loved ones found no one to help them. People who resort to private hospitals as an alternative have to fork out cash in advance before treatment and this has meant poor patients have nowhere to go.

Meanwhile speaking at a graduation ceremony for police officers in Harare Mugabe said that strikes and job stay aways were part of a plot by the opposition to sow political turmoil in the country. ‘Our security forces have heightened their vigilance in order to thwart the subversive maneuvers of those who engage in crimes of political violence,’ the official Herald newspaper quoted him as saying. Critics say the regime has run out of excuses and desperately looking for excuses to cover up it’s corruption and mismanangement.