Public health system hit by nurses strike

A strike for better pay and working conditions by nurses employed in Zimbabwe’s public health sector gathered momentum this week throwing the service into fresh disarray a week after the country’s junior doctors ended a similar six-week action. Sources in the Zimbabwe capital, Harare, told IRIN on Thursday about half the country’s registered public health nurses had started the action on Monday mainly at rural clinics. They said hospitals in the major urban centres, however, were still functioning because city nurses were still undecided about the action. “There was confusion as some nurses did not know what course of action to take,” said ‘The Herald’, a pro-government daily. “There were also allegations of victimisation and threats that those who took part in the industrial action risked having their annual bonuses withdrawn.” Sources said the strike arose out of a deadlock last week between the Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZINA) and the government over the nurses’ grading system according to which salaries are set. With inflation running at 70 percent, salaries, wages and allowances in Zimbabwe’s health sector for the year 2000 have only been allocated a 14 percent increase. Earlier, rights activists and health officials told IRIN they were concerned that a strike by nurses could be even more damaging than the six-week strike by doctors. Zimbabwe has some 800 public health doctors and 9,000 nurses, whom they said, formed the backbone of the health service in a country where rural people, who form 70 percent of the 12 million population, do not have recourse to other medical treatment.