HARARE – Patients were being turned away from major government hospitals as the strike by nurses and doctors entered full swing this week, paralyzing an already crippled health delivery system, leaving multitudes of Zimbabweans to die.
Nurses and doctors have made demands to the beleaguered government of President Robert Mugabe asking for minimum salaries of Z$2 billion and Z$3,5 billion respectively vowing not to return to work unless they get this – but the Zanu (PF) government, busy with election campaigning, is giving very little attention to the protests.
Susan Lungu of the Zimbabwe Nurses Association said, “We are simply saying the money we are getting is not enough to take us to work, feed us and our families as well as afford decent lives. We have made our demands but there has not been any serious response hence we have to stay at home or just do nothing.”
The Zimbabwean visited Parirenyatwa and Harare hospitals in the capital this week and observed only a skeleton staff comprising senior personnel trying to attend to patients. The staff were overwhelmed and most people were sent home without being attended to.
Some patients who had been admitted were asked to go home because of lack of staff to attend them. “This is a sad situation,” Vivian Chamuko of Harare said after she had been informed to take her husband home from Harare Hospital. “They are saying we should go home because there are no nurses and doctors. They are saying we should simply take the patients home to die.”
Health minister David Parirenyatwa could not be reached for comment but the Public Service Commission has said its members are disgruntled because government gave salary hikes only to the uniformed forces yet all civil servants’ earnings have been ravaged by massive hyperinflation.
Post published in: News