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As the world celebrated the International Workers’ Day on Wednesday, medical professionals in Zimbabwe spoke out against the dire working conditions within the healthcare sector.
The Ministry of Health and Child Care has declared war on government doctors who refer patients to their private surgeries when the medical assistance can be rendered at public hospitals. Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, Health Minister Douglas Mombeshora said it is not allowed for doctors to transfer patients that they would have seen in government hospitals to their private practice; “unless the patient has insisted that they no longer want to be treated in a Government hospital.”
A total of 4,000 doctors and nurses have left Zimbabwe since 2021, a senior official at the Health Services Board (HSB) confirmed to Reuters over the weekend. HSB chairperson Dr Paulinus Sikosana said the figure included 1,700 registered nurses who resigned last year and more than 900 who left this year.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised to fast-track his country’s National Health Services (NHS) visas to make it easier for overseas doctors and nurses to work in the UK — a move likely to throw Zimbabwe’s public health sector into unprecedented crisis in the wake of government’s protracted dispute with its doctors and nurses over remuneration and working conditions.
A group of Zimbabwean doctors marched at the country’s biggest hospital Sunday, demanding the release of one of their leaders who they say was abducted after calling for a pay strike.
Doctors yesterday came out guns blazing, telling Acting President Constantino Chiwenga that government did not spend a single cent in educating them.
By Jacob Mafume
An attempt by government to resolve their impasse though the courts is not only ill informed but extends the period of crisis resolution.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has condemned a decision by the Government of Zimbabwe to suspend at least 500 doctors, calling the move “misplaced and reckless”.
By Tendai Mugabe President Mugabe yesterday roundly criticised doctors for valuing money more instead of serving people in urgent need of healthcare services and called for an urgent solution to the impasse between doctors and medical aid societies. Addressing thousands of people gathered at the National Heroes Acre for the burial of celebrated medical doctor […]