Nurses go on strike

Zimbabwe’s nurses issued a notice yesterday to join medical doctors in striking over their poor working conditions.

This comes as the strike by doctors enters its third week, forcing government to deploy army medics to try and mitigate the mayhem at major public hospitals, after the State failed with its ill-advised threats to force the doctors to return to work.

At the same time, the leadership of civil servants’ unions has also warned the government that their members are fed up with its endless promises to address their grievances, including paying them their bonuses.

“We were supposed to have met with government over the bonus issue today (yesterday) and that meeting was postponed to March 6, apparently because (Finance minister Patrick) Chinamasa went on leave,” the secretary general of the nurses association, Enock Dongo  told the Daily News yesterday.

“This postponed meeting was itself supposed to have been held on February 20, and even that one was supposed to have been held much earlier.

“Our constituency has now told us that if we do not come back with bonus dates, they will be forced to engage in industrial action and not offer their services.

“Already, the nurses are overworked because they are short-staffed … and government should look into employing more nurses as they are burnt out.

“We also have a lot of issues that we have been calling for since last year that have not been addressed,” Dongo added.

Meanwhile, the president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA), Edgar Munatsi, said they were continuing with their strike until the government acted on all the issues they have raised. daily news