Former Minister for Health and Child Care during the inclusive government and MDC secretary for health Dr Henry Madzorera has called upon the government to address the concerns of striking doctors urgently in order to save lives. Doctors have been on strike since the 1st of December demanding to be paid their salaries in foreign currency. Doctors have also called on the government to provide drugs and medical equipment to hospitals. Below is the full text of the press statement released by Madzorera:
Pay the doctors and save lives. The government must quickly and effectively resolve the issue of Medical practitioners’ welfare to avoid further crippling of the health delivery system and avoid loss of life.
The ongoing medical doctors strike is a serious indictment on the government, it is a clear sign of failure, cluelessness and lack of care.
It is the role of the government of the day to provide social services to the citizens but sadly the government is failing to provide even the most basic of all.
Section 76(1) gives every Zimbabwean the right to basic health care services including reproductive health in contrast to what has been happening at state health institutions in the past two weeks and even beyond.Patients are dying unattended at the country’s major hospitals, while the junior doctors are in yet another episode of downing their tools.
The state of affairs at hospitals especially in the casualty section where patients, especially those involved in accidents, bleed while their relatives are watching helplessly.
The responsible Ministers should deal with the concerns of the doctors to ensure they return to work with immediate effect in a country where the health sector is deteriorating.
While a recurrent cholera outbreak is spreading like the fires of the forges, we cannot afford doctors strike.
Curbing the effects of the pandemic solely relies on an effective public health system that is able to identify and isolate patients as quickly as possible; the strike is simply placing the health system in a more compromised, precarious position which further endangers the citizens.
The continuous development of the national social crisis is reflective of the centre that is no longer holding with the ruling party concentrating on petty factional fights while the real issues of the day are left without leadership to attend.
The nation has lost many medical professionals to neighbouring countries; the current strike may result in many medical practitioners following the exodus, leaving our nation more exposed.The current medical practitioners strike calls for immediate action, corrected priorities and a renewal of the whole social services delivery mechanisms.
We find the dramatising of the whole issue including ZANUPF ‘s spin that it has been called off to be cynical, contemptuous and disrespectful.
Behold the New. Change that Delivers
Dr Henry Madzorera
MDC National Secretary for Health
Back to top