Soldiers supervising student nurses as doctors strike continues

By Tererai Karimakwenda
09 January 2007

The situation at Zimbabwe’s hospitals has continued to deteriorate as the authorities take their time responding to demands made by the country’s striking junior doctors. There have been reports that senior doctors and nurses had joined in the strike action, but president of the Hospital Doctors Association Dr. Kudakwashe Nyamutukwa told us Tuesday that this was not correct. He said consultants and nurses were still working at all main hospitals. But the nurses at Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo were contemplating going on strike because they could no longer afford the basic transportation costs.

Nyamutukwa also confirmed reports that the doctors would not return to work until their demands were met. They are demanding an increase in salary from Z$56,000 to Z$5 million as of January, 2007. They also want better working conditions. Nyamutukwa revealed that senior doctors were conducting the negotiations with government. He said they met the health minister Dr David Parirenyatwa on Tuesday and outlined their demands. There was no immediate response from the minister or any indication of what government was considering. Another meeting was scheduled for next Monday.

Meanwhile our sources in Bulawayo report that the situation at state hospitals is so bad that even mortuary attendants now want to walk off the job. Patients admitted to Mpilo Hospital are being taken home by relatives. And student nurses believed to be running the hospital are taking instructions from soldiers brought in from Imbizo Military Barracks. State run hospitals have been operating without doctors for nearly 4 weeks since junior doctors first announced they were resorting to industrial action. And the health minister has made no public or private statements outlining government’s intended plan of action.

Asked why such a huge increase all at once, Nyamutukwa said: “If you recall doctors have been going on strike year in year out because of the same grievances. So going on strike now what it simply shows is that none of the grievances was resolved. So that’s why there is this big jump, and I wouldn’t say it is a big jump as well. We are actually comparing ourselves with what regional doctors are getting because down in South Africa junior doctors are earning 12,000 rands to about 15,000 rands which is equivalent to 5 million Zim dollars. We are not asking for something that is ridiculous.”

According to South Africa’s Mail and Guardian newspaper, state radio said patients are being turned away without treatment at the main hospitals in Harare and in Bulawayo.