editorial comment
Two months after health workers that should be at the forefront of Zimbabwe’s fight against Covid-19 went on strike, it continues to be business as usual for the government.
The majority of health workers, including nurses, went on strike in June protesting against poor working conditions that included lack of personal protective equipment (PPE).
They also wanted to be paid in foreign currency because of the rapid decline of the Zimbabwe dollar.
After weeks of government inaction and unfulfilled promises to address the health workers’ grievances, doctors joined the job boycott.
Doctors’ grievances are similar to those of other health workers, who say they can no longer continue putting their lives on the line by going to work with scant PPE and without other appropriate tools of the trade.
The strike has crippled public hospitals and thousands of people are dying quietly of curable diseases in their homes, but the government remains unmoved.
According to the Zimbabwe Senior Hospital Doctors Association, every hospital ward and casualty department has become a “red-hot” zone with Covid-19 and every healthcare worker in Zimbabwe must be “properly kitted” to handle patients.
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Covid-19 cases in Zimbabwe that are surging towards 6 000 demonstrate how precarious the situation is at public hospitals.
On Friday, Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga, who was recently handed the Health and Child Care ministry, could only say: “Our health workers are on strike. “We are encouraging them to return to work so that we can save lives.
“While we are aware of their grievances, they should also consider saving lives.”
It goes without saying that those statements did not go far enough to jolt workers that have not been reporting for duty for the past two months to abandon their strike.
The government needs, as a matter of urgency, to open lines of communication with the striking health workers and table an offer that will encourage them to return to work as soon as possible.
Simultaneously the authorities have to put in place measures to ensure health centres are safe for both patients and health workers given the dangers posed by the novel coronavirus.
It is lazy for Chiwenga to continue parroting the line that the government is working on addressing the health workers’ grievances without putting forward a solid plan to address the sorry state of our health care system.
The doctors and nurses’ grievances are not new as the health system has been rocked by strikes for the past two years and that it has taken this long to address the latest job boycotts is a serious indictment on the government.
Chiwenga needs to stop with the rhetoric and roll up his sleeves to tackle the issues that confront his ministry so that health workers return to work immediately to save lives.
Anything short of that will be considered total failure for the vice-president.
