Doctors from government hospitals returned to work on Wednesday after a crippling two week long strike, but without their wage demands being met. Brighton Chizhande, President of the Hospital Doctors Association, said the union decided to call off the strike on humanitarian grounds and after receiving reassurances from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai that the government understood their plight and would listen to their demands.

The doctors claimed that the fear of a looming health crisis played a large part in their returning to work, following the reports of new cholera cases and an outbreak of swine flu.

Chizhande told SW Radio Africa on Wednesday: “We went back to work on humanitarian grounds. We saw that the patients are the ones actually suffering while this game of wait and see is being played. We are actually now lobbying government to re-appoint new people to the Health Services Board and the Hospital Management Board, and dissolve the existing boards that we have, because these people have shown that they have failed.”

Last Friday 15 Parirenyatwa Hospital doctors, including Chizhande, received letters of dismissal from the Clinical Director of Parirenyatwa, and several others received dismissal letters from Harare Central Hospital. But the president of the Hospital Doctors Association said they had been told they could re-apply for their jobs. He denied that these dismissals had anything to do with them calling off the strike.

Chizhande said politics and poor management have played a huge part in the destruction of central hospitals. Furthermore the doctors want their ‘paltry’ earnings of US$170 to be topped up to at least $1000 a month. They are now giving the authorities an ultimatum of a month to look into the issues of health workers.