Harare (New Ziana) – The government on Saturday announced a 60 percent increase in allowances for medical doctors following negotiations through the Health Service Bipartite Negotiating Panel.
Last month, the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association declared that its members were incapacitated to report for work and demanded new allowances pegged against the prevailing inter-bank foreign currency rate.
Doctors have embarked on industrial action on numerous occasions in recent times, protesting against poor working conditions among other things.
Health and Child Care Minister Dr Obadiah Moyo said government had availed an improved 60 percent increment on night duty, nurse managers, on-call, special health and standby allowances.
Other allowances reviewed include the Initial uniform grant from ZWL $75 to ZWL $300 and the Psychiatric allowance which was reviewed from ZWL $20 to ZWL $100 per month.
“Out of residence allowances (have been) reviewed from ZWL $250 to ZWL $500 per month, post basic allowance (has been) reviewed from ZWL $70 to ZWL $150 per month whilst additional post basic allowance will be increased ZWL $10 to ZWL $25 per month for the first additional qualification,” he said.
“Parties to the meeting also agreed on the locum rates for nurses and paramedics to be reviewed from the current ZWL $4 to ZWL $16 per day hour and from ZWL $6 TO ZWL $24 per night hour. Locum rates for doctors were also reviewed from the current ZWL $7 to ZWL $28 per day hour and from ZWL $10 to ZWL $40 per night hour.”
Dr Moyo said government remained committed to further improving the conditions of service of its workers and called on the health personnel to be equally committed to duty.
“Government is grateful to those who remained on their post of duty delivering care, saving lives and alleviating suffering. For the sake of saving lives of the patients we now call on all doctors whether from the Ministry of Health or University consultants to report to their posts of duty at 0800 hours on Monday the 7th of October,” he said.
“Those who fail to do so are reminded that they will be in breach of their contracts of employment and will face disciplinary action.”
Health Services Board chairman Dr Paulinas Sikosana said disciplinary action would be taken against those who continued to abscond from work.
“As the employer, there are disciplinary actions that we have commenced in terms of the relevant provisions of the Labour Act which actually states what disciplinary procedures need to be undertaken for those workers that have absented themselves from their work station for at least five days and this is considered a mass job action and due process will be undertaken in terms of the relevant section of Act,” he said.
New Ziana
