'Intern' doctors refuse to return to work

The negotiations between health workers and Government yesterday failed to lure striking doctors back to work as they insisted on their demands despite the employer offering to review their allowances in the first quarter of the year.

Government had offered to review health workers' allowances in April 2019 together with those of the rest of the other civil servants. It also assured the health workers that the remaining $6 million vehicle loan scheme coupled with a duty free facility would be availed by end of day yesterday. However, the duty free facility would only benefit those who would have accessed the loan facility.

"We are not happy at all with this arrangement. We had asked for a duty free facility to cater for all our members, Government wants to provide it only to those who will benefit from the vehicle loan scheme only," said ZHDA in a statement released last night after the bipartite negotiating forum.

Government also promised to avail $10 million for creation of 402 new posts for the entire health sector, committed to continue improving the drug and equipment situation in hospitals and said working hours were still under evaluation and standardisation.

It also said the proposed contracts for incoming junior resident medical officers would be done in consultations with all relevant stakeholders. However, the doctors refused to take up the offers arguing that it was a bad one. The doctors have since resolved to meet on Wednesday in preparation for a massive demonstration scheduled to take place on January 4 in a bid to exert more pressure on Government to act on their grievances.

"For the whole month, the Health Services Board (HSB) has invested all its energy on dragging ZDHA to court and firing our members," read part of the statement.

"They completely forgot to answer matters raised by doctors for the whole month. They have shown no sense of urgency at all in restoring normalcy in hospitals."

According to ZHDA, Government assured them that $2,2 million worth of medicines were stored at the National Pharmaceutical Company and in the process of being distributed to different Government hospitals. It also said funds for hospital equipment had also been availed but the situation in hospitals would take time to improve. On salaries, the ZHDA said Government reiterated that it was not feasible to pay them in United States dollars since 99 percent of its revenue was in RTGS.

"We have repeatedly asked the Ministry of Health and Child Care to honour the collective bargaining agreement by paying 100 percent of our salaries in foreign currency as agreed. The Government continues to ignore our call citing a litany of excuses," said ZHDA.

Earlier on, the junior doctors' bid to have their urgent application seeking leave to appeal against the Labour Court ruling declaring their strike illegal flopped.

The Labour Court ruled that the application was not urgent. Their lawyer, Mr Munyaradzi Gwisai, yesterday confirmed the Court's latest decision.

"We went to Labour Court today seeking leave to appeal in an application that was brought under a certificate of urgency. The Court deemed our application not urgent enough and it will now be brought to court as a normal court application meaning that it will have to join the queue," said Mr Gwisai.