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Doctors
have right to strike, Catholic justice commission tells Zimbabwe
gov't
Catholic Information
Service for Africa (CISA)
January
24, 2007
http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=22796
HARARE – The Catholic
Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe has urged the government
to address the grievances of striking state doctors, saying their
month-long action is hurting poor patients.
"The strike has caused untold human
suffering and loss of life to many," the commission said, according
the Independent Catholic News, quoting local media.
The Commission for Justice and Peace
said "the doctors have a right to strike if the employer is insensitive
to their needs, which are not out of this world. The longer the
dispute is not resolved, the more the ordinary people will suffer."
Junior doctors at Zimbabwe's four main
state hospitals began their work boycott nearly four weeks ago when
they limited the number of patients they treated. The action soon
escalated into an all-out strike.
The doctors are demanding that their
salaries be raised from the current 56,000 Zimbabwe Dollars to 5
million. With inflation in Zimbabwe running at more than 1,000 percent
the current doctors' salaries barely cover the cost of food.
The doctors ignored calls from Health
Minister David Parirenyatwa to end their strike after being offered
an undisclosed salary package by the government.
Patients are bearing the brunt of the
crisis as nurses, state health consultants and remaining doctors
battle to attend to overwhelming numbers.
Last week, the Health Ministry called
on army medics to step in and augment skeleton staff numbers at
some hospitals. Zimbabwe is in the throes of a severe economic recession
characterized by four-digit inflation, massive unemployment, and
chronic shortages of drugs in state hospitals and basic foodstuffs.
*Republished by Catholic Online
with permission of the Catholic Information Service for Africa (CISA),
based in Nairobi, Kenya (www.cisanewsafrica.org)
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
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