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Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter
Public hospitals are continuing to be upgraded with doctors and nurses given what they need with another US$4 million worth of new equipment now being supplied after the Government mobilised the funds.
The Second Republic led by President Mnangagwa had declared its desire to modernise and industrialise the country, and the mobilisation of top medical equipment is a quest to modernise the health sector and ensure everyone can get the standard of care they need and deserve.
Vice President and Minister of Health and Child Care Constantino Chiwenga, said the conditions of service for civil servants including health workers were complex as they do not involve salaries alone, but other factors such as tools of trade.
Doctors had complained in the past that they were leaving the public sector or even Zimbabwe because they could no longer cope without the equipment they needed.
“Right now, the equipment which we are procuring includes equipment for surgery, chemotherapy, immunotherapy equipment, humerus therapy and external beam radiotherapy machines. These had gone out of service and we had the old machines.
“We are ordering but those which had gone out of service, we are getting them repaired so that at any given time, we do not have a machine breaking down and then we do not have a replacement immediately,” he told Parliament last week.
On Thursday there was debate in Parliament on the Health Services Amendment Bill, which sailed through the Committee stage with amendments before it was referred to Parliament’s Legal Committee to scrutinise if the amended form was consistent with the Constitution.
Debate on the Bill was characterised by sporadic flaring of tempers as legislators were divided on a clause that seeks to include health workers in the category of providers of essential services that could not take normal industrial action.
They can still strike if the Bill is approved in its final form, but for a maximum of 72 hours in any 14 days.
Legislators, particularly from the opposition CCC, argued that it was a Constitutional right for workers to go on strike when they feel salaries have become unattractive.
But VP Chiwenga said Government was dealing with the issue of conditions of service holistically.
“Now, the issues which are being raised by Honourable Members are administrative issues which are affecting the entire country and this is what we are addressing,” he said.
“It is not only about salaries. Salaries come at the tail end but we are talking about their accommodation, transport, tools of trade, the equipment which they use in hospitals and this is what we are doing.
“As I speak now, we have already done, in terms of the equipment, a shopping list which is more than US$4 million to equip our hospitals to make sure that whoever goes to the hospital, receives attention and services and given, in particular a citizen of our country, the life which God decreed, that the individual must be on this mother planet either for 60 years, 70 years or for 100 years.”
VP Chiwenga said the Government’s efforts should be achieved.
While the Constitution provides a right to participate in collective job action, VP Chiwenga said the same law guarantees right to life.
“Nowhere in the Constitution is it written that any person can withdraw somebody’s life because you have got a grievance to settle with whoever, be it an employer, somebody else and you say they must die because I have got a bone to chew with my employer,” he said.
People advocating that health workers can go on strike were the same who would take the Government to court for negligence if they were to lose a relative during labour unrest, said VP Chiwenga.
However, legislators from the opposition insisted that it was wrong to stop health workers from striking.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ziyambi Ziyambi, then weighed in saying the Bill was also outlawing an industrial action going beyond 72 hours.
“If you go to Clause 5 (2), it explains the restrictions that are there. Firstly, in (a), it says the health services is now deemed an essential service consistent with section 65 which indicates that a law may designate any other as an essential service. It then says no collective job action, whether lawful or unlawful shall continue for an uninterrupted period of 72 hours or for more than 72 hours in any 14-day period.
“So what this provision is doing is, it is restricting the time line which the health services can go on strike,” said Minister Ziyambi.
The Bill, he said, also makes it a criminal offence for trade unions to incite people to go on strike.
VP Chiwenga said he had directed that all PSMAS institutions to be opened after they were closed for varied reasons including labour unrest. PSMAS is the largest medical aid society in the country and ensures all civil servants plus a growing group outside the civil service. It owns hospitals, clinics and pharmacies through a subsidiary but these have been closing as staff have not been paid for three months.
Government was still waiting for results of a forensic audit being carried out at PSMAS after several reports of financial imprudence, said the Vice-President.
“We have said all PSMAS institutions must be opened and we have put medicines. I have directed the Permanent Secretary and the staff to open all PSMAS institutions which had closed down,” said VP Chiwenga.
“We are putting medicines into those institutions so that our people get attended to. The issue of what should be done now, it is a matter which we will be discussing with the Ministry of Finance, the regulator and all stakeholders concerned. In the meantime, whilst the investigations are going on, we want the services because people will not stop being sick.
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