"As The ZHDA, We Remain Open For Dialogue,"
The Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) which represents junior and middle-level doctors has said that its members remained open for negotiations with the government.
These remarks come as the government has fired 77 doctors for being absent from work “for no justified cause”.
ZHDA spokesperson, Dr Tapiwa Mungofa told members at an emergency solidarity meeting held at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals on Wednesday that doctors were the ones pushing for dialogue between them and the employer. Mungofa said:
We as the ZHDA, we remain open for dialogue and we have our patients at heart.
Ordinary citizens are suffering, the most vulnerable, the children and the elderly, the pregnant women are suffering and this (firing of the 77 doctors) is what they have decided to do in order to solve the situation?
Doctors have been on industrial action since the 3rd of September this year, demanding sustainable salaries and better working conditions.
Whilst doctors have so far rejected a number of offers the government made to them saying that they were insignificant in an inflationary economy like Zimbabwe, the government has said that a review of salaries can be made in 2020 since it is difficult to mobilise revenue to fund the budget at this time of the year.
More: The Herald
