Sacked medical interns reinstated

The government announced on Friday that a crisis at the Muhimbili National Hospital had ended after the reinstatement of medical interns sacked following a weeklong strike for an increase in allowances. "The government has started to deal with the problems, including allowances and salaries of medical cadres to be paid effective this month," Frederick Sumaye, the prime minister, told reporters shortly after visiting the hospital. He said the government understood the plight of the interns but had been unable to improve their allowances because of the country's financial difficulties. He appealed for patience, saying the government would attend to the problems gradually. Deputy Health Minister Hussein Mwinyi said the government reinstated the interns after a meeting on Thursday with a delegation of the Medical Association of Tanzania. Earlier on Thursday the association had given the government a one-day ultimatum to reinstate the interns unconditionally or face a nationwide strike by all doctors. "The interns have been unfairly treated and sacking them is not a solution to low pay problem faced by medical staff," president, Josephat Kahamba, the association's president said. The interns were claiming at least a 20-percent raise in their allowances because, they said, their workload at the hospital was greater than their fully employed colleagues and senior professionals. A total of 148 interns had been on strike - 111 doctors, 24 pharmacists and 13 nurses - at the 1,400-bed hospital in central Dar es Salaam, the nation's commercial capital. They were demanding an increase in their monthly allowance, which is 80 percent of the 201,000 Tanzanian shillings (US $200) monthly salary of a newly hired government doctor. In comparison, Kahamba said, doctors at the same level in Kenyan earned the local equivalent of $500 a month, Uganda US $530 and Zimbabwe $700. Some 40 specialist doctors who remained at the hospital during the strike have said their workloads are heavy and announced late on Thursday that clinics, which during the strike had only attended to emergencies, would close down until the government sorted out its dispute with the interns. There is disagreement whether or not deaths at the hospital were more than usual because of the strike. A resident of Morogoro region, Salehe Mzee, said his mother died early on Thursday after having been unattended since she was admitted two days earlier. However, in a statement, the hospital's executive director, David Tregoning, said services at the facility were back to normal and that bed occupancy and mortality rates were at the same level as before the strike. He described reports of a rising death toll as exaggerated and said at least 30 new interns and 30 nurses would be hired by Monday. Despite this account, the chairman of the Tanzania Union of Government and Health Employees (Muhimbili Branch), DR Gelase Kamugisha, told reporters late on Thursday that the government and the hospital's management were covering up the truth. "The management must speak the truth. Things are not going well here and patients are dying in large numbers," he said without giving comparative figures.