Maravi

Firing health workers is not the solution

Firing health workers is not the solution
Written by Editor

The effect of the strike action by the health workers can no longer be emphasised. The scars of this strike are very clear in our country. Almost on a daily basis we receive stories of how people have died after failing to get medical attention owing to the industrial action that has engulfed our health sector.

We continue to receive stories of how people are deciding to stay in their homes and wait for their death because they know that going to the hospitals will not yield anything.

And from the time this strike action started it has been clear that the nurses are dealing with people who do not care about the happenings in this country. The reaction of the political leadership has not been that aimed at resolving the concerns that have been raised by the health workers.

We know that one of the attributes of great leaders is their ability to understand the context in which they are operating and act accordingly. We also know that leaders who rely on authority to solve problems are bound to come to grief. A government that is able to solve complex issues without resorting to authority brings happiness in its people. It acts to bring its people closer. Such a government does not operate in abstract as it is in touch with its people.

However, the reaction of Rupiah’s government has been that of deafening silence and when they have broken the silence it has been threats to the striking workers.

In fact, at a time when the country had almost been paralysed by strike action from health workers and the education sector, Rupiah Banda found it fit to go to Chililabombwe to watch football. After watching the match, having bypassed the striking workers at Ndola Central Hospital and Kitwe Central Hospital, Rupiah flew to Zimbabwe and from Zimbabwe to Cape Town, clearly showing the nation that he does not care as long as his world is comfortable.

And after having done so little in trying to resolve this strike action, they have now resolved to fire the health workers who will not report for work by Monday.

This country has not forgotten what happened during the period of 1999 and 2000 when the junior doctors went on strike for almost six months. The first thing the government of Frederick Chiluba did was to issue threats to the doctors and when the threats did not yield anything, they decided to suspend the doctors. After realising that the action of suspending the doctors was not working, they decided to fire the doctors. The country has not forgotten what happened, the action only brought chaos and the government eventually asked the fired doctors to go back to work. Those who decided to get back to work were reinstated. At the end of that action, almost half of the doctors had decided to go into private practice while others decided to cross the borders into Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.

This is what Rupiah is attempting to do. Attempting to do it with very crazy ideas of even inviting nurses within the region to apply for jobs.

As former minister of health Professor Nkandu Luo has put it, giving ultimatums is not the best way of ending this strike action. The best way is to negotiate.

The government should negotiate with the nurses who are finding it impossible to believe that there is no money to deal with their concerns. Arrogance and intimidation will not make the health workers believe that there is no money after the extravagance they are seeing among the political leadership.

While these threats will scare some of the staff, it will work to make others harden their stance just like the way some junior doctors decided to go into the private sector or leave the country after spending so much of taxpayers money in training them.

Today we carry a comment from the Health Workers Union of Zambia Lusaka provincial secretary Bruno Tembo who also says intimidation will not help convince the health workers to go back to work.

According to Tembo: “The health workers have indicated that they can go back for work if only government can assure them that their demands will be addressed with time frame tagged to it, not through intimidation. I am appealing to the health minister Honourable Simbao not to use unpalatable words. Workers are suffering hence the demands they are asking. The minister is aware that the sector is limping in terms of workforce and he is already saying that he fires the only patriotic impoverished Zambians who have remained in the country despite the difficult conditions.”

It is undoubted that the health workers are poorly remunerated and the matter needs serious attention and consideration. The figures that the nurses are talking about, if they are anything to go by, need to be seriously looked at. The government can get to the workers with humility and honesty and put up their case. The government should be able to say resources will never be enough to satisfy all the workers’ demands and plead with them to get back to work. Not the attitude that we saw in Rupiah when he addressed his second press conference on Wednesday. The health workers have ears and they know the effect of their strike action. By them staying away does not mean they are being heartless.

The government should not pride itself when on Monday it fills hospitals with intimidated but angry workers. This will have an impact on health care delivery. The worst thing a patient would want is to be attended to by an unhappy health worker.

It is important for people not to get tired of efforts aimed at resolving this situation. Like we have said before, the demands of the striking health workers can only be addressed through negotiations. Negotiated solutions can be found even to disputes that have come to seem intractable and such solutions emerge when all the parties reach out to find the common ground. Firing the health workers is not the solution.

Labels: HEALTHCARE, STRIKE

posted by MrK @ 3:53 PM