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We have heard many heart-rending stories in recent weeks of patients waiting in vain for treatment at local public clinics and hospitals.
Some have turned up at health facilities with serious injuries but because there are no doctors to attend to them due to the ongoing strike, the patients have been forced to return to their homes with their septic wounds.
There is a genuine possibility that many lives are being lost because of lack of treatment. The few, more fortunate and better-resourced ones have had to turn to private health centres to pay huge sums of money for treatment as doctors at Government clinics and hospitals continue with their job action, one of the many they have embarked on over the past 10 months.
We are profoundly concerned about this recurring labour instability in the health sector and the resultant unnecessary suffering of patients.
The Government, through the Health Service Board (HSB) has shown its concern too by engaging in salary negotiations with the striking doctors. On Saturday, the Government announced a new package for the doctors while ordering them to return to work today failure to which disciplinary action would be taken against them.
The employer awarded them a 60 percent salary increment which will see senior doctors pocketing between $8 000 and $11 000 monthly in salaries and allowances while junior doctors will earn slightly less.
Other allowances such as locum rates for doctors, nurses and paramedics and uniform allowances have been increased four-fold while residency allowances were raised to $500 from $250.
Health and Child Care Minister Dr Obadiah Moyo told the media on Saturday that doctors must consider the plight of patients and resume duties.
“Government is grateful to those doctors who remained on their posts of duty delivering care, saving lives and alleviating suffering,” he said.
“For the sake of saving lives of patients, we now call on all doctors (Ministry of Health and University Consultants) to report to their posts of duty at 0800 hours on Monday the 7th of October 2019. Those who fail to do so are reminded that they are in breach of their contracts of employment and will face disciplinary action. Patient’s lives are paramount. . . . Government has shown sincerity by continuously engaging the health workers to address their challenges including implementing programmes that ensure that they have the needed medicines and equipment to deliver medical care.”
He added that the Government will continue to review doctors’ salaries and allowances.
“Their remuneration packages have been reviewed consistently in the context of the obtaining economic climate. Government is, therefore, appalled that doctors have walked out from the negotiating table and from their patients who are in dire need of their care,” he said.
Considering the suffering that our people are going through due to doctors’ frequent strikes and the Government’s new salary review, we call on the protesting workers to return to work.
All of us know that the economy is underperforming, resulting in the Government fighting hard to balance the competing demands using limited resources. For example, the drought during the 2018/19 season left hundreds of thousands people food insecure, thus in need of food aid. The Government has had to spend much money feeding them. Also, with the 2019/20 summer agricultural season upon us, the Government is mobilising resources to be able to secure inputs for millions of villagers who lack resources to buy them alone. There are many more pressing obligations apart from the foregoing that the Government is attending to.
Notwithstanding these challenges, the Government has seen it fit to review doctors’ salaries and allowances. We, thus, urge them to reconsider their rejection of the latest offer from their employer and take the right decision which is to return to work to save lives and alleviate suffering.
If they stiffen their necks there is no reason for the Health Service Board (HSB) to continue on bended knees but to play one of the roles of an employer which is to take disciplinary action against a misbehaving employee.
We don’t know what action would be taken but considering the long period this latest strike has stretched and the high frequency of industrial actions in the health sector, doctors may have almost made themselves expendable. It is a fact that they have not been working for weeks. It is also a fact that the people are already suffering in their absence, others may be losing their lives. Therefore, of what use is a doctor who is not at work just because he does not want to work? Would the suffering masses tolerate a situation whereby their government pays workers for not working? In our view, they won’t.
In that connection, we look forward to the expeditious implementation of a recent Cabinet decision to enforce legislation that bars health care workers from staying away from duty.
Online Reporter