Stalemate over doctors

The Zambian government last week offered to unconditionally reinstate 135 junior doctors fired in December for going strike over working conditions, news reports said. The government had earlier told the doctors to reapply for their jobs, rejecting their demand for unconditional reinstatement as setting a bad precedent. The minister of health, David Mpamba, said: “We had a meeting with the representatives of the striking doctors and I expect them to come back within a week.” However, the doctors, from the capital, Lusaka, the Copperbelt district, rejected Mpamba’s offer, saying only the provision of enough drugs and an improvement in the health workers working conditions will end their strike. The doctors, on embarking on the strike, cited a bad working environment, the poor state of hospitals and a lack of drugs, medical and surgical supplies and equipment. They said that to continue working in the run-down hospitals was a danger to patients and themselves.