Government has threatened to take action against striking doctors.
In a press statement issued on the Ministry of Health and Childcare’s official Twitter account, Government said doctors are not allowed to engage in a strike because they provide an esential service as defined by the Labour (Declaration of Essential Services) Notice, 2003 (SI 137 of 2003), section 2(e). Government said doctors who continue striking will face legal consequences. The statement reads:
To this effect all members of the Health Service who have withdrawn their services are advised to report for duty with immediate effect, failure to this, the provisions of the Health Service Regulations, will be invoked.
The Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) petitioned Government on February 5 this year and gave it 21 days to address a number of grievances that include the issue of allowances, vehicles and shortage of medicines and equipment in hospitals. Part of the letter reads:
This serves as a notice that with effect from March 1 we will be unable to discharge our normal duties until such a time the ministry decides to prioritise our people’s health. Our locums remain unpaid since October 2017 and we remain severely understaffed. There are no essential drugs and fluids and patients are dying unnecessarily. There has been no written response from you to address this and no tangible efforts. Working hours remain ill-defined and at the whim of the admin and our allowances have not been graded as per regional standards, a concern we raised in our letter dated February 5.
Government has however declared the strike illegal citing that it has addressed some of the issues raised by the doctors among them locum payments, motor vehicle scheme, availability of equipment and medicines at hospitals and freeze of vacant positions.