Health services crippled as doctors, nurses strike

A strike by government doctors and nurses crippled state hospital services in the country’s main cities on Wednesday, AP reported. Quoting the Hospital Doctors Association, the agency said about 350 doctors stopped work on Tuesday in the cities of Harare, the capital, and Bulawayo, the second city, demanding better salaries and allowances. Some senior doctors and military officials were handling emergency cases, and staff at provincial and rural health facilities still had to decide whether to join the action, Dr Sibert Mandega, head of the doctors’ association, said. “This action is greatly regretted, but has been necessitated by the consistent lack of progress in pay negotiations,” he was quoted saying. The Zimbabwe Nurses Association said about 80 percent of its 9,000 members stopped work on Wednesday to protest against their salaries. According to the report, nurses earned about US $320 a month, depending on seniority. It said junior doctors earned about US $440 a month, of which about one third went towards routine deductions and hospital accommodation. Mandega said doctors were also demanding a review of emergency on-call allowances. Government doctors stopped work for six weeks in late 1999 to press similar demands. The government said at the time that the action cost scores of lives.