The Zimbabwe government on Friday fired more than 200 public sector doctors who have been on strike for over two months, demanding salary and on-call allowance increases pegged on interbank rates, reported Reuters.
The decision to dismiss the doctors was taken after disciplinary hearings were held in their absence. It is in line with President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government’s tough stance against a restive labor force.
Health Service Board Chairperson, Dr. Paulinus Sikosana, said in a statement that more doctors are expected to appear for disciplinary hearings following the strike. The board had previously conducted hearings for 213 doctors and 211 were found guilty of being absent from work without proper cause. Only two doctors attended the hearings. It plans to call in 516 of the government’s 1,601 doctors for disciplinary hearings.
Junior and middle-level doctors from state hospitals have been on strike since September. They are demanding their pay to be indexed to the U.S. dollar to stop their earnings being eroded by triple-digit inflation. They even defied a court ruling last month that their action was illegal and they should return to work. Patients are being turned away from hospitals as there are no doctors to treat them.
Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association has accused the government of showing little interest in resolving the standoff as the president and his ministers get treated abroad. Although the government had doubled doctors’ salaries last month, they said it was inadequate, as it would only increase their monthly salary to about 2,000 Zimbabwe dollars ($130).
The people of Zimbabwe are bearing the brunt of the worst economic crisis in a decade, with shortages of foreign currency, fuel, power, and medicines. The drought has worsened the crisis as it has left more than half of the population in need of food aid and forced the government to scramble for scarce dollars to import grain.
