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Diana Nherera Herald Reporter
It was work as usual yesterday at Chitungwiza Central Hospital as all doctors ignored calls by the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors’ Association to strike over poor pay and working conditions.

The hospital was operating normally with doctors attending to patients.

Hospital spokesperson Mrs Audrey Tasaranarwo told The Herald that doctors at the hospital had adhered to their hippocratic oath that states that they should not desert their patients .

She said the hospital had a long standing tradition of not participating in strikes even when others heeded strike calls over pay and working conditions.

“Doctors at our hospital are reporting for work as usual unlike their counterparts at Parirenyatwa and Harare Central hospitals because they do not want to desert their patients as required under the oath they take,” she said.

“Some doctors do not even want to go on strike because they want to serve the community. Some are Christians and since they live in the community, they cannot have their neighbours failing to get treatment when they are sick.”

She added that Chitungwiza Hospital had proper procedures for handling doctors’ grievances.

The strike by doctors from Government hospitals, which started on Monday this week has paralysed the health delivery system in the country’s major referral hospitals. Hospitals such as Parirenyatwa were only attending to emergency cases, while Harare Central was not treating patients at all. Government this week said it would assess the situation and deploy doctors from the uniformed forces at hospitals across the country as a temporary measure to save lives while junior doctors press ahead with their strike. More than 300 doctors from other Government hospitals around the country went on strike over poor pay and working conditions.

The striking doctors were demanding an upward review of their salary from $282 to $1 200 a month.

The striking doctors want an upward review of their on-call allowances from the current $0,50 an hour, an increase of their housing allowance from $250 to $350 a month, a facility to purchase cars duty free and they also want an allowance for risky diseases such as the Ebola, HIV and Aids and tuberculosis to be put in place.