Doctors down tools

Wed, 14 Dec 2016 10:45:24 +0000

RESIDENT Doctors at the University Teaching Hospital have started a 10 days sit-in protest against alleged Government’s failure to pay settling in allowances and salary arrears and discrepancies in salary scales between Junior and Senior medicate officers under the Ministry of Health.

UTH Resident Doctors Association of Zambia (RDAZ) president Oliver Kaoma said following a meeting held on Monday December 12, 2016, members of the association had resolved to down tools until Government responded to their demands.

Dr Kaoma said RDAZ members had complained about the deplorable state of the doctors call rooms and ablution blocks at the health institution and have given the Ministry of Health a 10 days ultimatum to attend to their grievances after which another meeting would be called to review the outcome and decide the way forward.

Among the demands included unpaid settling in allowances and salary arrears, incomplete/and or none-payment of student stipends, and salary increments and the 24 percent fuel allowance for salary scale K to be effected immediately.

“The unanimous decision was arrived at due to prolonged delay in settling the above and failure by their employer, Ministry of Health to honor its commitment after a long period of dialogue. The sit-in is pending resolution of the above issues and will continue for 10 working days after which the members will reconvene to chat the way forward if the issues are not resolved,” Dr Kaoma said.

The notice which was issued yesterday was copied to all Ministry of Health Permanent Secretaries, technical services, the Zambia Medical Association (ZMA).

And ZMA president Aaron Mujajati said the association would be meeting with the resident doctors today to find out on whether dialogue had completely failed for the RDAZ to resolve to such measures as withdrawal of services.

Dr Mujajati has called on the Government to respond to the issues raised with the seriousness it required to avoid repercussions of such action on the patients.

“We are meeting with the resident doctors tomorrow to see if indeed dialogue has failed, but we still have hope there is some avenue for dialogue over the issues raised.

We also call on the Government to intervene on the matters raised which indeed have been pending for a long time and must quickly be addressed,” he said.

He said they were quiet serious issues that have been raised and they should be given the necessary attention to avoid implications on the sector.