By SIMON MUNTEMBA
DOCTORS that have abrogated their oath to save lives by going on an illegal strike for selfish motives must all be fired and replaced from the many other doctors who are unemployed, the Patriotic Front (PF) has said.
In an interview, PF media director Antonio Mwanza reiterated that there was no justification whatsoever for the doctors to strike when the government had cleared their arrears.
Mr Mwanza has accused the doctors of working with a named opposition political party to bring down the government.
Mr Mwanza said it was saddening that after government paid all the arrears of the 309 doctors, they have decided to disrupt work and people were dying because they had no medical personnel to attend to them.
He said the party was reliably informed that Resident Doctors Association (RDA) was having dark corner meetings with known opposition political party leaders to sabotage government.
“We have reliable information that some of these resident doctors association members have been having meetings with known opposition political party leaders with the sole aim of bringing this government down. But we are not going to allow men and women who have sworn and were actually sponsored by the state using tax payers’ money to sabotage the same government that gave them the education,” he said.
He said the resident doctors must not hold government to ransom as their earlier demands of payment of salary arrears to over 300 doctors has been addressed.
He said the ongoing strike by resident doctors was illegal and urged government to dismiss them all for putting the lives of Zambians at risk.
“They must be fired with immediate effect because clearly they have chosen to play politics with the lives of the Zambian people. We will not allow people’s lives to be put at risk because of these political doctors,” Mr Mwanza said.
And the Zambia National Broadcasting Services (ZNBC) reports that Labour Commissioner Givens Muntengwa says the law prohibits essential workers like medical doctors from going on go-slow, regardless of their concerns.
And the Ministry of Labour and Social Security has quashed the registration of the Professional Union of Media and Allied workers.
Mr Muntengwa has also stressed that the Resident Doctors Association of Zambia is not registered as a union to bargain for workers conditions of service.
Meanwhile, Mr Muntengwa said the registration of the Professional Union of Media and Allied workers has been quashed.
Mr Muntengwa said the decision was made after the Industrial Relations Court ruling that the union be deregistered.
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