CCC throws tacit support behind striking workers and doctors
The opposition CCC led by Nelson Chamisa says it supports the ongoing industrial action by public sector healthcare workers which has crippled the health delivery system in Zimbabwe.
Since Monday, doctors, nurses and other staff at public hospitals have been on strike, demanding US dollar salaries, among other demands.
In a statement on Thursday, 23 June 2022, CCC said the nurses and doctors “were left with no option” but to down tools and the Government should address their demands as a matter of urgency. CCC said:
We stand in firm solidarity with government health workers who were left with no option but to withdraw their labour on the 20th of June 2022 due to incapacitation and poor working conditions.
This is regrettable because the State’s incompetence and failure to address the workers’ concerns and prioritize this critical sector have caused mass suffering to Zimbabweans whose right to affordable, quality health care remains under constant threat.
The health workers issued a public statement on the 17th of June 2022 indicating that they had repeatedly tried to engage the Health Services Board and the Ministry of Health and Childcare over a fourteen-month period to have their plight addressed without success.
They stated that their poor conditions of service had caused chronic brain drain in the health sector with over 4000 resignations in the last three years.
Instead of engaging with the health workers to address their concerns in good faith, draconian measures have been introduced to illegally prevent health workers from leaving the country, including through the refusal to issue certificates of good standing.
We call for the concerns that have been raised to be addressed immediately to ensure that the citizens’ right to health is respected.
As the alternative and a government-in-waiting, we wish to put forward highlights of the alternative CCC health policy approach which will solve the nation’s health crisis at its root.
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