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Herald Reporter
The immediate 50 percent pay rise and the US$75 Covid-19 allowances are a temporary arrangement to cushion Government workers while ongoing salary negotiations continue, the Health Services Board has stressed in the wake of industrial action by nurses.
The HSB is now waiting for guidance from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development on the potential Government offer to be taken for the actual negotiations with health workers, board chairperson Dr Paulinus Sikosana has said.
This comes as nurses, mainly those at central and provincial hospitals, continued to boycott work yesterday claiming they were incapacitated although some nurses at district level were still reporting for duty.
There are concerns that the special immediate measure put in place while a proper budgeted deal is negotiated has been seen as a Government pay offer, rather than a temporary relief measure.
Nurses also want to be treated as a special case since they have been reporting for duty during the Covid-19 pandemic while, they say, many civil servants have been sitting at home on full pay.
The HSB has already held two informal meetings with some of the Health Apex members to explain that the 50 percent salary increment, coupled with a US$75 Covid-19 allowance to be paid for three months, was a temporary arrangement to cushion the workers and does not prevent comprehensive salary negotiations.
Once the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development has given the HSB a potential offer, engagements for a cost of living adjustment are expected to resume.
Dr Sikosana said service delivery issues in the public health sector were a responsibility of the Secretary for Health and Child Care and not the HSB.
Contacted for comment over the health workers strike yesterday, Health and Child Care Deputy Minister Dr John Mangwiro said he had just emerged from a meeting not related to the strike, and needed to be briefed before commenting.
Zimbabwe Nurses Association president Mr Enock Dongo yesterday said the strike was continuing as there was “no formal engagement with Government yet”.
“We wrote to them last Thursday but they have not replied,” he said.
Pressed to explain why the nurses continued to boycott work, Mr Dongo said while they appreciated the gesture, it was important for them to get a “separate package from this” since they were on the battle front fighting Covid-19 at a time when other civil servants had been home.
In their letter to Government, the health workers had called for a negotiated cost of living allowance and want salaries set to the present Zimbabwe dollar equivalent of the October 2018 salaries, when they were still in US dollars. The nurses withdrew their labour on June 18.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Young Nurses Association yesterday appealed to all nurses not in employment to come forward to help fill the gaps in health services while the industrial action continues.
Online Reporter