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Doctors' Strike Leaves Some Zimbabweans 'Gathering Here in Pain'

Rutendo Mawere

   HARARE, ZIMBABWE - A month into a strike by doctors in the country's
   public hospitals, Rudo Mbofana can't find relief from her constant back
   pain -- or her frustration.

   The Harare resident said she had been referred to Parirenyatwa General
   Hospital, the capital's largest medical center, "but there is no help.
   We are just gathering here in pain, in shame and in agony."

   An untold number of Zimbabweans have been turned away from public
   medical facilities since Sept. 3, when just more than 500 junior
   doctors, paid less than $200 a month, went on strike, demanding better
   wages as well as equipment and supplies for treating patients.

   Hundreds of senior doctors with the same complaints joined the strike
   Thursday, further diminishing treatment options in the southern African
   country of 14 million.

   Government offer rejected

   On Friday, labor groups representing the doctors rejected the
   government's offer of a 60% salary increase. It would have been paid in
   Zimbabwe's devalued currency and not the U.S. dollars that the doctors
   sought.

   "They're asking the government to match their salaries with what they
   were earning" before the country's economic collapse, explained Dr.
   Fortune Nyamande, spokesman for the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for
   Human Rights. His group does not represent labor nor is it involved in
   negotiations, but Nyamande was apprised of Friday's developments.

   The government has threatened to withhold the pay of striking doctors.
   Dr. Paulinus Sikosana, chairman of its Health Services Board, said it
   won't pay someone who won't work.

   The World Health Organization's representative to Zimbabwe, Dr. Alex
   Gasasira, encouraged negotiations between the striking doctors and the
   government.

   "We hear that many patients are being turned away, some of them with
   very serious conditions," Gasasira said in a phone interview. "So we
   are concerned that the most vulnerable people '¦ would not be able to
   access the services that they would require."

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