Centre News Hub
Harare- The country’s biggest workers representative body, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has stood in solidarity with the striking nurses demanding better salaries, improved allowances and provision of medical essentials pledging their full support to their job action.
Nurses at Parirenyatwa and Sally Mugabe Hospitals in Harare recently engaged in an industrial action demanding that the government reviews their meagre salaries in line with the rising cost of living at a time most nurses are saying they received less amounts this month compared to other months.
Nurses in Zimbabwe earn less than $450 in a mixture of US dollars and local ZIG currency, a wage they say is far below the Poverty Datum Line (PDL).
The health workers also demanded a review of housing and transport allowance saying the Public Service Commission (PSC) buses do not align with their shift patterns.
ZCTU Secretary General, Tirivanhu Marimo, said nurses also want free medical care at public hospitals, arguing they can no longer afford treatment themselves.
“This, coupled with shortages of medical sundries and equipment for them to be able to diligently discharge their duties, has been crippling effective treatment and care for patients. For years, medical workers have been calling for improved working conditions, enforceable staffing ratios and have been patient for too long while the government has been dragging feet” said Marimo.
ZCTU said it urges the nurses to be steadfast in their demands as the fight for the safety and dignity that nurses and their patients have must be unrelenting until sanity is restored in the public health sector. The ZCTU reiterates that decent work is not a privilege. “said ZCTU.
Marimo also said it is not a secret that health sector workers are poorly remunerated and to cut some of their allowances is callous.
“The sector is collapsing simply because it is not being prioritised by central government. The government needs to quickly respond, address concerns raised to save lives. It is embarrassing that the nurses have downed tools on the heels of remarks by the Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Deputy Minister Kudakwashe Mnangagwa, that the lowest-paid civil servants now earns above the Poverty Datum Line and that government salaries have become competitive.” said Marimo.
ZCTU also called upon the government to address the welfare of all its employees as a matter of urgency for improved service delivery and not wait for them to down tools.
Labour experts and activists have warned that the industrial action by nurses could open floods gates and lead to an eruption of similar job actions by other civil servants in various sectors.
