adminDiana Nherera Features Correspondent
It is a season of nightmare for the poor and sick. Junior and middle-level doctors in the country’s major hospitals and referral centres, who make a critical cog of the health delivery system, are on strike, virtually immobilising the sector for the past three weeks.
The striking doctors have since been joined by their provincial counterparts, threatening a wind that will not blow anyone any good — especially if the ongoing talks between the doctors and Government yield no results soon.
Major hospitals and referral centres cater mainly for the vast majority poor who cannot afford private medical care.
Doctors are demanding salaries of up to US$1 200 (from about US$280) and better working conditions and little traction seems to have been gained in the latest round of talks between Government and the unhappy workers.
At Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals and Harare Central Hospital, where critical cases from either clinics in the capital and surrounding areas are referred, the situation is dire.
Other major health facilities such as United Bulawayo Hospitals and Mpilo Hospital have been affected by the strike.
Provincial and district hospitals have not been spared either.
Only Chitungwiza Hospital has been spared from the industrial action.
The strike has paralysed Zimbabwe’s health delivery system and has seen patients failing to receive treatment.
Some patients have also succumbed to some diseases after failing to be attended to on time.
No official figures of victims are readily available though.
Authorities at Harare Central Hospital have since put a sign advising patients that doctors were not attending to patients due to the industrial action.
The hospitals’ clinical director, Mr George Vera, said patients including pregnant women are currently being attended to by nurses and senior staff.
“Patients at the moment are being attended to by nurses and some of our senior staff since the strike started. Doctors from the uniformed forces who were already in our system are also attending to patients,” said Mr Vera.
Patients have also been turned away at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals with the institution attending to emergency cases due to the shortage of manpower.
Officials at the hospital have, however, refused to comment on the situation at the hospital.
However, some critical cases have gone unattended to due to the strike.
For example, the paediatric section Parirenyatwa was shut down due to the doctors’ strike.
In normal circumstances, children being attended to do not have to join queues as they are given preferable treatment going through the registration system before being referred to the doctors on duty.
While the queues at the section are generally small, the doctors’ strike has rendered the critical department chaotic with queues forming by the hour while the wards are full.
Patients have also been turned away.
Most Zimbabweans cannot afford treatment at private doctors’ chambers preferring Government hospitals.
The strike has also put pressure on council clinics and hospital as patients flock the facilities for easy access to treatment.
Chitungwiza Hospital brings a glimmer of hope.
Doctors here rejected calls to down their tools.
Chitungwiza Central Hospital spokesperson Mrs Audrey Tasaranarwo said doctors at the hospital stick to the Hippocratic Oath, which says that doctors should attend to patients at all times and not desert their patients.
She said even when nurses from other hospitals go on strike, health professionals from Chitungwiza Central Hospital continue to work and attending to their patients.
“Some doctors do not even want to go on strike because they want to serve the community. Some of them are Christians and since they live in the community, they cannot have their neighbours failing to get treatment when they are sick,” Mrs Tasaranarwo said.
She said Chitungwiza Central Hospital had proper procedures for handling doctors’ grievances.
While Government has appealed for the striking doctors to return to work while their grievances are attended to, the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors’ Association said in a statement, the strike was due to “overwhelming” work burden as a result of a “dysfunctional referral system”.
The association also noted Government’s failure to manage initial grievances presented by the doctors.
ZHDA urged Government and the Health Services Board, who are handling the negotiations to urgently address their grievance.
“The latest move has disastrous consequences to the nation’s health delivery system and ZHDA continues to urge the Ministry of Health and Child Care to honour the pledges as agreed so far.”
The association has also indicated that were unable to convince striking doctors to return to work without a written commitment from Government.
Doctors from Government hospitals went on strike over salaries and other working conditions.
The striking doctors are demanding an upward review of their salaries from the current US$282 to US$1 200 a month.
They also want an upward review of their housing allowance from US$250 to US$350 a month and a facility where they can buy cars duty free.
The Health Services Board offered striking doctors a new on-call allowance of US$10 per hour from the current 35 cents and introduced a risk allowance for diseases such as the Ebola virus, tuberculosis and HIV and Aids.
The Health Services Board has, however, indicated that it would only be able to give a written commitment to striking doctors after the National Budget presentation expected this month.
A meeting between the ZHDA and the Health Services Board broke down on Tuesday this week as the employer was reportedly going back on their word.
The doctors’ association also accused Government of not according the strike the urgency it deserved resulting in people even losing their lives.
The association has also appealed for President Mugabe’s intervention in the impasse between them and their employer.
The doctors are also compiling a detailed dossier of all the meetings held so far which would then be submitted to the Office of the President and Cabinet.
The Ministry of Health and Child Care on Monday appealed to striking doctors to return to work while Government looks into their grievances.
But despite Government’s appeal, doctors from provincial and district hospitals this week also joined the strike.
“Doctors working in district and provincial hospitals in Zimbabwe work under very strenuous conditions with an average of one to two doctors per district thus a highly inappropriate doctor to patient ratio,” read the statement.
ZHDA urged Government to urgently address the root causes of the industrial action as the latest move by provincial and district hospital doctors had disastrous consequences to the country’s health delivery system.
“The ZHDA reaffirms its commitment to haven an urgent and peaceful resolution to the current impasse and providing health care services of unparalleled excellence to the whole nation,” read the statement.
As the strike by doctors continues with no end in sight, one hopes for an urgent solution to be agreed between ZHDA and the Health Services Board to avoid unnecessary loss of lives.
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