HARARE - Nurses in Zimbabwe went on
strike on Monday to press the government to pay them allowances
and to protest a flawed system for grading salaries, a nurses
union said.
The strike left public hospitals understaffed and follows a
month-long walkout by junior doctors that ended on April 2.
The strike poses a problem for President Emmerson Mnangagwa
who wants to revive a sluggish economy ahead of elections set
for July in which he faces a revitalized opposition Movement for
Democratic Change party led by 40-year-old Nelson Chamisa.
The Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZNA), which has more than
16,000 members, said government negotiators had on Sunday tried
to avert the strike by promising to pay arrears but nurses
resolved to go on strike.
"They have been making promises for a long time and the
nurses resolved to only go back to work when their money is in
their accounts," Enoch Dongo, the ZNA secretary general said.
At Harare Hospital, the second biggest in the country, there
were few nurses on duty and non-critical patients were turned
away, a Reuters witness said.
Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo closed its outpatient department
and only tended to emergency cases, according to an official
memo to staff. Its maternity wards were the most affected, a
doctor at the hospital said.
The lowest paid nurse in Zimbabwe earns a gross monthly
salary of $284 before allowances, according to Dongo.
The nurses want to be paid other allowances they say were
promised by the government in 2010 but never honoured. A
majority of nurses were placed in lower grades making it harder
for them to receive higher pay, he said.
Zimbabwe spends more than 90 percent of its annual budget on
salaries and Mnangagwa's government is seeking to curb the wage
bill by a freeze on new hiring and cuts to the workforce.
Health Minister David Parirenyatwa said he could not
immediately comment on the strike.