Some Zimbabwe junior doctors have ended their more than 100 days of industrial action, after the intervention of Catholic bishops but because many senior doctors remain on strike, hospital treatment remains patchy, writes MedicalBrief.
Patients are dying at home after being turned away from public hospitals as both senior and some junior doctors remain on strike demanding improved salaries and working conditions. Newzimbabwe.com reports that it visited two major referral hospitals, Harare Central Hospital and Parirenyatwa Hospital at the weekend and saw desperate patients and relatives being advised to return home as no doctors were available to attend to them.
Junior doctors downed their tools last September and were joined by their senior colleagues in November.
A junior doctor at Harare Central Hospital who never joined the strike said the situation at the medical facility was worsening by day. "Nothing has changed ever since doctors went on industrial action. A few junior doctors have returned to work but consultants are not yet back. These junior doctors are irrelevant without their seniors," the doctor who asked not to be identified said.
Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights treasurer, Norman Matara is quoted in the report as saying patients at the hospital were being turned away because junior doctors reporting for work could not check on patients without the supervision of senior doctors.
Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors’ Association (ZHDA) president Peter Magombeyi has resigned from his position as leader of junior medical practitioners, but vowed to continue the struggle to better conditions for health professionals. Newsday reports that in a letter to the Health Ministry as well as the Health Services Board, Magombeyi cited personal reasons for his decision to step down amid speculation that he was forced to quit.
The report says Magombeyi was in the limelight in September last year when he was allegedly abducted and tortured by suspected State security agents before he was dumped in Nyabira. He was taken to South Africa for further medical attention and has not returned home since then.
His resignation comes at a time the doctors are divided, with a splinter group having been formed late last year, whose majority membership is back at work, leaving the ZHDA to continue with the near five-month-long strike that began in September.
Parirenyatwa Hospital, Harare, public relations officer Linos Dhire, quoted in an earlier 263Chat report, said the junior doctors were already conducting their duties, a position that was confirmed by the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) "We can safely say all junior doctors are reporting for work and they are doing their duties," said Dhire.
The report quotes a ZHDA official as saying junior doctors had indeed returned to work. "Junior doctors have returned to work, but if you get in the wards there is not much progress being done as junior doctors are monitored by senior doctors," the official said. However, the absence of senior doctors has complicated the situation as most patients in the out-patients ward could not be attended by junior doctors without the guidance of their senior counterparts.
The report says the doctors who reported for duty are part of the 448 who were fired by Health Services Board for misconduct after they disregarded several ultimatums to return to work.
The report says the impasse between junior doctors and the Health Services Board only ended following the intervention of Catholic bishops who met President Emmerson Mnangagwa to find a solution to the degenerating situation. This resulted in Mnangagwa issuing a moratorium for them to report for duty within 48-hours without being questioned. However, some of the doctors remained defiant insisting that they be paid their salaries in foreign currency or equivalent, which the government said it could not afford.
The report says some of them only started reporting for duty after the Higher Life Foundation came up with a $100m fellowship programme to incentivise practitioners in the health sector for between six and 12 months.
[link url="https://allafrica.com/stories/202001140148.html"]Full NewZimbabwe.com[/link]
[link url="https://www.newsday.co.zw/2020/01/doctors-leader-magombeyi-resigns/"]Full Newsday report[/link]
[link url="https://allafrica.com/stories/202001080324.html"]263Chat report on the allafrica.com site[/link]