Staff Reporter
Doctors at public health facilities have urged their employer not to publish doctored information on attendance statistics, but to address outstanding issues such as salary increment and to improve their working conditions. They said government is focusing on issues which do not even matter while leaving major issues that matter the most.
Their representative board, Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) revealed that the medical practitioners’ financial incapacitation was far from over and they cannot do anything with the amount they are receiving. They however clarified that it was not industrial action as the government termed it, but simply that they were failing to fulfil their duties due to incapacitation.
“With grave concern, we note that the employer is circulating falsified attendance statistics. It is sad that the system is trying hard to ‘patch’ what it should just fix,” the doctors said.
A week ago, Health minister Honorable Obadiah Moyo announced that some medical staff in the army would help out at the public hospitals affected the most by the job action. This was after the health workers in public hospitals went on industrial action demanding good remuneration that is sustainable and that they were demanding the improvement of working conditions.
The government held several meeting with the health practitioners in a bid to address their issues through their representatives. Despite those several meetings with the government, the doctors claim no reasonable deal had been successfully agreed on.
The doctors rather went on strike demanding the release of their colleague, Dr Peter Magombeyi who was alleged abducted.
“We have recommenced engagements with the Health Services Board and a written submission of what would be necessary to capacitate us,” ZHDA said in a statement.
They however would not divulge the exact values that they suggested to their employer.
“I would like to make it very clear that any proposition which is not a five-figure salary would actually kill the spirit for negotiations,” said the doctors.
The doctors have said their acting president Dr Peter Magombeyi, who has taken the limelight following his abduction on 14 September, 2019 and his release, is now undergoing treatment in South Africa at the upmarket Milpark Hospital. He left the country after being held by the police that refused to release him for a few days citing that they needed to protect him.
The youthful doctor, who was born in 1993 and grew up in Bulawayo, was allowed to travel to South Africa after Judge President Justice George Chiweshe ruled that he could proceed to Johannesburg.
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