Maravi

Doctors join strike

Doctors join strike
Written by Staff Reporters

RESIDENT doctors throughout the country have resolved to down tools indefinitely, joining the nurses and other health workers who have been on strike for over two weeks now. And most wards at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) have been closed while others are deserted following the strike by health workers.

Resident Doctors Association of Zambia (RDAZ) president Dr Crispin Moyo announced at a press briefing yesterday that the withdrawal of labour comes in the wake of numerous problems being experienced by doctors.

"It is with deep regret that we inform the public that resident doctors have withdrawn labour. Our action has been prompted by the current accommodation crisis being experienced by our members including intern doctors and postgraduate doctors, some of whom face eviction from their homes due to the failure on the part of government to settle its obligations to the landlords," he said "As per requirement this class of medical doctors occupies training positions and their accommodation is the responsibility of the government."

Dr Moyo said all this was against the backdrop of general poor conditions of service for all medical doctors.

He said while it was appreciated that there had been some favourable response from the government in a few areas, these had been falling far short of the mark because they had clearly failed to ameliorate the emergence of the current crisis including poor conditions of service and unacceptable working conditions for medical doctors.

"Notwithstanding the above, government continues to pay lip service to our plight. It must be realised that it is impossible to provide an excellent service when you have a demotivated workforce working in poorly maintained infrastructure with largely inadequate and non-operational equipment," he said.

Dr Moyo said doctors would not be disillusioned as stakeholders and had continued to hear more verbal promises than deed.

He said dialogue had clearly yielded very little for the doctors and called on the government to look into their plight and consider the best solutions which were clearly stipulated in their position paper.

Dr Moyo said the doctors were aware that the withdrawal of labour was not without extreme distress to the public and to the members.

"We shall therefore be returning to work as soon as this problem was resolved," Dr Moyo said.

The strike by health workers has continued at UTH and other clinics in Lusaka.

At UTH, the nurses were yesterday found outside near the casualty car park.

The theatres have been closed leaving only the ones for emergencies operational.

Wards E01 and E02 were the only ones operational while E11, E12, E21 and E22 were not.

Ward C03 was also closed with the admission wards. The female ward was closed and the female patients had been put together with the male patients.

At Chainama Clinic, all the wards were closed except the maternity ward, which had three nurses attending to emergencies such as road accidents and expectant mothers.

The victims were being treated and referred to UTH as the clinic was not admitting any patients.

At the Antenatal and under-five clinics, there was a poster that read "Emergencies go to maternity."

And resident doctors at Ndola Central Hospital (NCH) and Arthur Davison Children's Hospital (ADCH) have gone on strike.

Resident Doctors Association (RDA) Ndola branch president Dr Bright Nsokolo yesterday said the work stoppage had been caused by the unconducive working environment.

"Resident doctors at Ndola Central Hospital and Arthur Davison Children's Hospital regret to inform the public that with immediate effect we have gone on a work stoppage not because of our current bad conditions of service but because of the unconducive working environment where instead of saving lives we are actually killing," Dr Nsokolo said. "This is because we are sending away more patients than we are admitting to go and die at home. As doctors it makes our hearts bleed to send patients home who should otherwise be admitted all because there is no space to keep them and nurses to look after them."

He wondered where the patients who fill the wards at NCH and ADCH were going in view of the closure of some wards at the two public health institutions.

"As at today all the four medical wards at Ndola Central Hospital have been closed and the few medical patients are being admitted in casualty whether it's patient with TB [Tuberculosis] or severe malaria meaning a patient with malaria may end up contracting TB as well," Dr Nsokolo said. "The gynae [gynaecology] and maternity wards have also been closed and the few patients who are supposed to be in these wards have been bunched in labour ward. One of the three surgical wards has also been closed. Even at ADCH wards have been closed including the ICU [Intensive Care Unit]. The question one would ask is 'where are the many patients that occupy these wards under normal operations?' because these wards are never empty; the patients are dying at home."

Dr Nsokolo appealed to the public not to think that resident doctors had neglected the sick because the few critically ill patients were being taken care of by senior and expatriate doctors.

"It is important also to mention that doctors have been working for over three weeks to try and serve the public in the absence of nurses and other health workers who are striking but now the situation has become unbearable," he said. "We had earlier appealed to government to resolve the standoff with striking workers within at least two days before we could go on a work stoppage...the situation has also been compounded by the delay in the payment of salaries. To date a good number of doctors who are under Ministry of Health headquarters have not received their May salaries and this has been the case for the last four months and it's not acceptable."

Dr Nsokolo appealed to the government not to threaten the striking health workers but to listen to their demands.

"We hope the stand-off will be resolved as soon as possible so that we can go back for work and serve our people," Dr Nsokolo said. "Doctors are ready to go for work as soon as the striking workers return."

Nurses in Chingola told President Rupiah Banda that it was part of his job description to intervene in favour of striking workers' demands to reduce the suffering of patients.

In a petition addressed to President Banda on Wednesday which was presented to the Chingola District commissioner's office, the nurses stated that the excuse of the government not having funds could not be entertained because it had exhibited that there was enough money through the purchase of hearses, the planned procurement of mobile hospitals and his heavy and frequent trips whose impact they could not see.

The nurses also called on the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) to probe the Chingola District Health Management Team for alleged abuse of donor grants.

"An example is where a top officials withdraws K20 million for personal use on monthly basis," the workers stated.

They also stated that utility vehicles meant for programmes like TB and HIV were used for activities that were not health related.

"In most cases such vehicles break down and costs are incurred by the government," the health workers stated. "An example is one vehicle broke down in Serenje which unfortunately was being used by a top management official."

And health workers in Chipata District in Eastern Province last Wednesday resolved to go on strike to press for improved conditions of service.

The health workers resolved to go on strike after a meeting held at Chipata General Hospital.

Eastern Province Health Workers Union of Zambia chairperson Otton Kaluba said the union supported all the health workers who had withdrawn labour because the government had failed to address their problem.

"Here at Chipata General Hospital the workers have already declared that they have withdrawn labour. In fact here at Chipata General Hospital they have been very patient, they have delayed. You have seen how long it has taken in Lusaka but here they have waited thinking maybe that impact from their friends will make government realise that really we are dealing with human beings but it seems government hasn't responded to that. So that's why we are saying no since government is not responding so let us join our friends," Kaluba said.

Kaluba appealed to other health workers in the district to join their friends, who were on strike because the government had not responded to their grievances.

Recently health workers in Petauke and Nyimba went on strike demanding better conditions of service.

The health workers' resolution to go on strike in Chipata district coincided with the teachers' decision to down tools earlier on Wednesday.

Over 500 teachers from Basic Education Teachers Union of Zambia (BETUZ), Secondary Schools Teachers Union of Zambia (SESTUZ) and Zambia National Union of Teachers (ZNUT) resolved to go on strike at a meeting held at Chipata Day Secondary School until government addressed their outstanding salary related allowances.

Among the issues raised by the teachers include the conclusion of the protracted 2009 salary and other conditions of service of not less than 30 per cent negotiations, outstanding rural, remote, fixed band, settling-in allowance and other related allowances.

The unions also strongly advised administrators not to victimise their members.

Eastern Province UNIP chairperson Ahmed Randera urged the government to quickly address matters that had forced civil servants to go on strike so that the country was not paralysed.

Randera said it was sad that the government did not seem to be concerned about the happenings in the country.

And Namwala district health management board in Southern Province has closed down health centres and revised the 24 hours working period at the Out-Patient Department to less than 12 hours due to the on-going strike in the district.

Confirming the development on Wednesday, both the district director of health Dr Davy Kaile and Zambia Union of Nurses Organisation (ZUNO) acting branch chairperson Michael Chila said all junior nurses were on strike and only four senior nurses were working.

Dr Kaile said the strike in the district had crippled the health service delivery and was pathetic, forcing management to close down Maseele Urban Clinic and reduce the working hours from 24 to less than half a day because of the huge number of staff who were on strike demanding improved conditions of service and salary increments.

"Even my senior nurses who are currently working have indicated that if government delays to complete the negotiation by the end of this week they will also join the strike. So we urge our government to finalise the negotiations to save life in various health institutions throughout the country. The situation is no longer encouraging as you can see we are working on a skeleton workforce but what we should not forget is that these people are also stressed looking at the overload," Dr Kaile said.

Chila said ZUNO members would not resume work until government responded to their demands.

"As a union we shall support and protect our members from any form of abuse. So what we urge this government is to speed up and conclude the negotiation. It is very unfortunate that government has failed to realise that they have taken long to complete the negotiations and that it has a negative impact on the health delivery system. As you have heard in the presence of the DDH people here are not happy and those are senior staff who are saying by Friday [today] if government does not respond to the demands they will close down the hospital and they are not joking," Chila said.

Some senior clinicians at the hospital threatened to close down the institution today if the government did not respond to the demands by civil servants to completely paralyse the operations of government owned institutions.

Other government departments affected by the strike in Namwala are education, livestock and fisheries and social welfare where workers have completely downed tools due to the delay by the government to complete the negotiations.

National Energy Sector and Allied Workers Union (NESAWU) secretary general Yotam Mtayachalo appealed to the government to expedite negotiations for improved salaries and conditions of service for public workers in the country.

Mtayachalo said it was important that the government concludes the negotiations with public service workers because the strike by health workers had paralysed operations in most hospitals and clinics throughout the country.

"The prolonged strike action by civil servants has had grave consequences on poor ordinary Zambians who cannot access private healthcare because of high levels of poverty. I feel this is a very serious issue which needs urgent government and other stakeholders' intervention before many lives are lost," Mtayachalo said.

He said health and other public workers had legitimate grounds for their demands and it was important for negotiating teams to agree on the matter.

Mtayachalo said the government must also seriously address the issue of housing allowance for public workers because the high cost of accessing decent housing in Lusaka, Copperbelt Province, Livingstone and Solwezi among other places was beyond the reach of many workers.

He appealed to resident doctors in Ndola not to go on strike and continue to be patriotic because the situation would be aggravated and would lead to more loss of lives.

Public service workers have been on strike demanding an increase in their salaries and housing allowances. Nurses and health workers have downed tools for over two weeks now and teachers' strikes have led to a series of protests by pupils in most parts of the country.

But works and supply minister Mike Mulongoti on Wednesday said civil servants' strikes were politically influenced.

Mulongoti said the striking workers would be the ones to complain if constitutional office holders and senior government officials received an upward adjustment to their allowances and salaries.

"It goes without saying that if you get 15 per cent, you can't complain when senior government officials receive 15 per cent, because what is the basis for your complaint?" Mulongoti asked. "If they get 10 per cent, constitutional office holders get 10 per cent. Also to insinuate that the person who is entitled to gratuity should not receive, does not hold because a gratuity is an entitlement, they [civil servants] think they must get more money than the people supervising them."

He charged that civil servants were being influenced by politicians to strike so that they could destabilise government functions.

Mulongoti said civil servants should realise that a significant portion of the budget was sponsored by the donors and salary increments would not be justified because of the current global economic crisis.

"First of all, we would want to talk to them that they are punishing innocent people. They are being incited politically, which is unfortunate. There is an economic downturn, I don't think there is appreciation that what is happening elsewhere affects us," said Mulongoti. "Others are retrenching while others [civil servants] want salary increments. Do you think donors will be happy that there is a downturn and their people are losing jobs while here people are protesting?"

Mulongoti said those who were striking should realise that there were more capable and qualified people who were entitled to employment but were roaming the streets.

Civil servants from lands, energy, mines and agriculture ministries in Lusaka on Tuesday resolved to go on strike in protest against the 15 per cent salary increment awarded to them this year.

Labels: HEALTHCARE, RDAZ, UTH

posted by MrK @ 7:51 PM