Zimbabwean citizens are bearing the brunt of the continuing standoff between striking junior doctors and the government over demands for a substantial salary increase as well as more staff, medical supplies and equipment.
Her husband, Prince Masawi, was forced to bring in a specialist to administer the anaesthetic and buy most of the post-operative medicines required. To make matters worse, despite the couple’s desperate efforts, they lost their baby. With no doctors to treat them, patients are being turned away in droves. Hospital officials at Parirenyatwa say they can only accommodate about 50 patients, mostly emergency cases. This falls far short of its usual capacity of 1 000-plus patients. Even when it is fully functional, though, the facility is often oversubscribed, with some patients having to sleep on the floor.
At the centre of the dispute between junior medics and the state is the wage disagreement, with the doctors arguing that their salaries have lost value and, as a result, they have been incapacitated to report for duty. “They did not turn up for the hearings, but we are going ahead with them in the medics’ absence,” said a representative from the Health Services Board.The government has repeated its threats to dismiss the doctors, with the country’s deputy minister of information, Energy Mutodi, saying: “The striking doctors can rest assured that once they are dismissed, there will be no rehiring by government.
Let's hear that old saying from a previous dictator! African solutions to African problems. Go right ahead, so far we all just saw problems but no solutions, just blame the west and whites when the little beetle in the brain falls from the scaffold.
South Africa soon