Doctors begin strike

DOCTORS have began their planned  strike countrywide in protest over government's failure to honour its pledge to appoint junior doctors and improve their conditions of service.

 The doctors have ignored last minute attempts by Government  to address their concerns.

On Tuesday,  Government promised overworked public hospital doctors to open up 250 new posts for junior doctors and 2 000 posts for nurses, but the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA), dismissed the offer as piecemeal and threatened to continue with its work stoppage starting today.

The Zimbabwe Medical Association twitted using @ZimMedicalAssoc shortly before midday today saying "Regrettably the strike has started. It shouldn't have come to this as this problem was brought to the ministers attention last year in May.

"#ZiMA does not condone any strike action by health workers and will do all it can to quickly resolve this unfortunate situation".

According to media reports, Health minister David Parirenyatwa is quoted saying  "We have been negotiating with the ministry of Finance for posts since November and so we have been offered 250 posts for doctors and 2 000 posts for nurses. This is a welcome move.
"I am urging them not to go ahead with the industrial action. We need to look after our patients. This is solved by negotiations."