Following a series of meetings involving striking health workers and their employer, the health services board, government is gravely concerned that the situation in our hospitals continues to deteriorate to the detriment of patients who need and deserve medical attention
as a human right, in line with our constitution.
In particular, government is disturbed by the fact that in spite of the many
concessions it made to the striking doctors, and the broad agreement reached on all but two issues, the striking health personnel continue to withhold their labour and negotiate in bad faith even though they are designated as an essential service under the labour act, and even though government has bent over backwards to accommodate them.
Equally, government notes with concern the political overtones which the labour issue has now assumed, including attempts by the striking doctors to appeal to constituencies which have nothing to do with health delivery or their employment contracts.
Mindful of the recent labour court judgement which ruled the industrial action unlawful, and in the interest of the patients who stand affected by this unlawful action by striking doctors, government has now decided on the following steps:
1- To urgently explore other ways to ensure that this essential health service is stabilized in the interim while more lasting measures are put in place to normalize the situation.
Government will be making further announcements in the coming days.
2- To continue to import essential medicines and accessories vital to health delivery to ensure effective health services to our people.
3- To fulfil all the commitments government has made to all health workers who continue to serve our nation, with an undertaking to review the conditions for all workers in the public sector within the second quarter of this year, consistent with the
national budget cycle.
4- In line with the court order, to request the health services board to take appropriate action against the striking doctors whose conduct has been declared unlawful by the courts, and is
contrary to the hippocratic oath, ethics, and international best practices which enjoin medical doctors and interns to “always treat other persons as having individual morals worth and dignity and never treat them merely as means to one’s own ends”.
Further, the oath warns that without it, “the doctor is a skilled technician or labourer whose knowledge fits him for an occupation but not a profession”. International best practices which govern doctors and interns, provide that doctors should not abandon patients and posts; and that, instead they should bring forward their grievances while making sure loss of life or unnecessary pain and suffering is avoided.
By going against the Hippocratic oath, the striking doctors have shown their callous insensitivity to human life, pain and suffering. In the meantime, government will not allow any demonstrations, at medical facilities whose purpose is to treat patients and ensure their full recovery. For the avoidance of doubt, government will not
remunerate any of its work- force in united states dollars, a position it made very clear to the striking doctors.
The government does not print United States dollars.
The hard earned foreign currency will be committed to, among other areas importing essentialmedicines for use in hospitals and clinics, as well as to facilitate the recovery of economy, in line with the Transitional Stabilization Programme.
Government wishes to acknowledge and thank senior doctors who have kept services going, doctors in private practice, in private health institutions, retirees, expatriates, foreign- based and trained Zimbabwean nationals for offering their services in the interest of patients.
General (Rtd) Dr. C.G.D.N. Chiwenga
Acting President