Following the seemingly unending impasse between government and striking junior doctors over an array of grievances including salary hikes among others, senior doctors have joined the fray and have downed tools in solidarity with their counterparts.
In a letter to the Clinical Director of United Bulawayo Hospitals, Junior and Senior Registrars said they arrived at the decision to stop attending to emergencies following their meeting held today.
“We as the Hospital Medical Officers, Junior Registrars and Senior Registrars held a meeting today and it is with a heavy heart that we agreed to stop attending to emergencies. We have been diligently attending to emergencies, hoping that the current impasse would be resolved.
“We are now overwhelmed and we share the same grievances with our juniors.
“This letter covers those on leave as well, who are in agreement an in full support of the industrial action,” read part of the letter.
The senior doctors added that they are optimistic the situation will be resolved to allow normalcy to return to Zimbabwe’s health system.
Government and the striking junior doctors have failed to reach a consensus on the way forward with the Acting President Constantino Chiwenga insisting that they will not pay civil servants in United States dollars.
The junior doctors strike has now gone for over a month, with government earlier announcing that it had dismissed them before reversing the decision and forcing them to report for duty. President Emmerson Mnangagwa was reportedly forced to abandon his annual leave to come and attend to the issue that left citizens exposed as the situation at the country’s public hospitals has become dire due to the absence of doctors.
Government has announced that it had procured drugs for use in all public health insistitutions, though there were rumors that some of them had expired.
