"As we move forward and face the future with courage, the expectation of government is that the work ethics and work culture within the Ministry of Health and Child Care undergo deep transformation," said VP Chiwenga.
"We expect all grievances to be solved amicably through discussions without endangering patients' lives; never again shall patients' lives be used like pawns in a game of chess."
Nurses have been on strike for over three months.
Doctors joined the strike last month, citing lack of government commitment to address the health professionals' grievances.
“Kusaziva kufa zvokwadi!” (Ignorance is a curse worse than death!)
VP Chiwenga if anyone is playing Russian roulette with the lives of the people of Zimbabwe then that person is you, Chiwenga, and not the nurses and doctors.
How many times have these nurses and doctors said the wage they are being paid is not enough to cover their transport cost to work and back home, buy food and pay for their accommodation? A quick calculation shows that their monthly wage does not even cover their transport cost let alone everything else.
As much as these health workers care about the welfare of the patients they cannot be expected to walk for hours to work on an empty stomach, do a full day’s work on an empty stomach. Walk back home on an empty stomach and go to bed on an empty stomach. Get up the following day and do the same again!
There are reports that government has just awarded the nurses and doctors a wage increase. Let us assume that the increase will pay for all their basic needs. With the annual inflation rate running at 800% and monthly rate at 35%; whatever wage increase government offered it must be increased by 35% end of every month!
Did you, VP Chiwenga, agree to the automatic monthly wage increase to cover for inflation? If you did not then the reality is the health care workers will be 35% worse off financially next month than he/she is this month. The US$ is a more stable currency than the Z$ and hence the reason the nurses and doctors have said they should be paid in US$ and not Z$.
It is not the health care workers who are responsible for Zimbabwe’s soaring cost of living and soaring inflation; this is government’s responsibility. To deny the workers a living wage is to punish the workers for government’s own failures.
How ironic that VP Chiwenga was addressing the press wearing the face mask and face shield and odd occasion he has visited an hospital or clinic he was wearing the full “space suit” PPE. And yet the nurses and doctors, the frontline workers working with the corona virus patients, do not even have the most basic PPE!
Workers is government offices and Zanu PF offices have been tested for corona virus and yet many of the health care workers up and done the country have not been tested.
Zimbabwe’s confirmed corona virus cases and deaths are very low but only because the country has not been testing as aggressively as it should. Zimbabwe has only done 20% of the covid-19 tests per capita of what SA has done. So of everyone covid-19 positive patient put into isolation four were left undetected and have been spreading the virus.
Zimbabwe’s economic is in total meltdown because of 40 years of the criminal waste of the country’s material and human resources through gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and rank lawlessness by this Zanu PF dictatorship. The party’s blundering incompetence in the handling of the corona virus pandemic is going to cost the nation hundreds of thousands of lives!
The nation has been stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu Pf dictatorship for 40 years and counting because the party rigged elections.
“The expectation of government is that the work ethics and work culture within the Ministry of Health and Child Care undergo deep transformation!” What the nation is dying for, literals and figuratively, is a deep transformation of the country’s rotten political system to end Zanu PF’s vote rigging culture!
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Robert Mugabe stayed in power for 37 years on the grounds that there was no one competent to replace him. He was a cunning and ruthless thug who cared about power and nothing else and what better way of ensuring he remained top dog than surrounding himself with men and women who are braindead! The worst thing that could possibly happen to Zimbabwe was that the braindead are now in power!
VP Chiwenga is a buffoon who was promoted way above his level of competence and in his desperate effort to prove he is not braindead he is blundering from pillar to post. The village idiot is now talking of kidney transplant in Masvingo General Hospital and liver transplant in St Luke Hospital in Lupane and yet these hospitals are in such a running state they have no clean running water and you would be lucky to get your blood pressure checked.
The buffoon is the Minister of Health at a time when the country is grappling with the corona virus pandemic and he clearly has no clue what is happening much less what to do about it.
Zimbabwe, we are in deep, deep trouble and the longer we allow these braindead Zanu PF buffoons stay in power the deeper the nation will sink the more the nation will suffer and many people will die!
The country is sinking into the abyss and the buffoon is wittering about “As we move forward and face the future with courage!” This would be hilariously fun if the reality was not the vision of hell-on-earth!
Chiwenga on Monday declared that strikes would now be a thing of the past.
The mercurial VP, who once fired thousands of health workers in the past for engaging in a strike, also announced that the salaries for health workers "had been reviewed", but refused to disclose the level of the increase.
"Nurses are not in any way using patients as pawns, but simply calling for a decent wage that can capacitate them to deliver high class healthcare to the general citizenry," said Zimbabwe Professional Nurses Union secretary-general Douglas Chikobvu.
"Nurses are bio-psychosocial beings who can be affected negatively or positively by socioeconomic factors. We as nurses are calling on the government to address our plight to cushion us so that we can afford basic needs.
If a worker is not paid enough to meet even his most basic needs of transport to and from work, food and shelter it is self-evident that the worker will not be taking up his/her duties regardless how essential their work happens to be. This is not rocket science but to a buffoon like VP Chiwenga it may just as well be rocket science.
Chiwenga and his fellow Zanu PF cronies have taken the lion’s share of the nation’s wealth these last 40 years leaving even the most essential services like health care and education starved of funds. Even now with the nation is serious economic trouble and in the middle of the most serious health challenge of our generation the buffoons continue with the wholesale looting and expect the nation to make do with the crumbles and clean bones they throw out.
VP Chiwenga lives in his C&M mansion, with a fleet of posh cars, has 45 gold watches, has nearly US$ 250 000 in one bank account, etc., etc. The buffoon spends more on whiskey in one day than the nurse earns in a month and yet when the nurse ask for more he foams at the mouth and start sweating profusely!
“Donors Fund 70percent Of Zimbabwe’s Health Sector”
So government is being asked to pay the wages of the workers and it is failing to do even that!
"As of September 9, Zimbabwe has recorded 7429 cases, 5542 recoveries and 222 deaths. Of 1 053 PCR done today, positivity was 3,4percent)" read a daily update statement from the Ministry.
Zimbabwe has done only 20% as many covid-19 tests per capita as SA has done. This is simply not good enough. If we are not testing our covid-19 figures are totally meaningless.
The price of not testing is that many people who should be in isolation are not and they continue spreading the virus. The policy of fewer test and fewer official covid-19 figures is madness! It is shocking that few Zimbabweans have woken up, to at least raise the alarm, to the tragedy happening before their own eyes!
ZINA president Enoch Dongo said nurses wanted to give Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, who was in August appointed health minister, a chance to resolve the dispute.
“When you have a crisis sometimes you need to give people a chance to resolve it. After sometime we will review this decision,” Dongo told Reuters.
“So we are telling our members to report for work but only if they have transport money and if there is PPE in hospitals.”
Dongo said the lowest paid nurse earned Z$6,000 Zimbabwe (about US$73) in salary and allowances monthly. The state statistical agency says an average family of five needs at least Z$15,573 to be not considered poor.
Chiwenga has said the government would soon table a pay offer for the health sector and stop paying medical bills for cabinet ministers and senior officials who seek treatment abroad to save on scarce foreign exchange.
The Zimbabwe economy is in total meltdown and the Zanu PF government has no idea what to do to revive the economy.
Since the corona virus outbreak the ruling elite has been forced to cut down on foreign travel be it for business, pleasure or medical care. VP Chiwenga is only making that reality as regards health trips, official. There is no doubt that Zimbabwe already have a two tier health system; a 5 star service for the ruling elite and a zero star sub substandard service for the rest.
It is heart breaking that the nurses are going back to work knowing their wage will not cover transport costs for many of them and that there will be no adequate PPE.
It is often said that nations get the government they deserve. We in Zimbabwe certainly deserve this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete with the entourage of equally corrupt and incompetent opposition parties. For 40 years we have known that Zanu PF has been rigging elections usurping our right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country. And for 40 years we have done nothing about it, of course we deserve Zanu PF, the economic ruins and all the miseries we are now facing!
Bulawayo facing water shortage.
The country is facing the most serious health challenge of our generation in corona virus and one of the most basic way of stopping the spread of the virus is washing hands throughly and as often as possible. People cannot follow this simple measure because there is no running clean water! What is more, the problem of water shortages is not new. Some towns and cities have had serious water shortages for decades! The people have sat on this time bomb for decades and now it has exploded and they are paying dearly for their folly!
The hospital has also rearranged its wards to easily manage both Covid-19 wings and other patients at the vast institution.
“We are lucky that the hospital has several unique or stand-alone buildings. Very soon the designated Covid-19 zone will be operational. We are targeting the opening for 1 October.
“The introduction and access to the newer Covid-19 RDT antigen test have also helped in the triaging of all the patients. The antigen-based RDT is far superior to the antibody-based yet it takes more or less the time to process,” Dzvanga added.
Zimbabwe continues to notice a decline in Covid-19 infections. On Thursday the Health Ministry recorded 24 new cases bringing the total number of infections to 1 596 with 5 635 recoveries from 7 453 infections recorded since March.
A total of 222 Covid-19 deaths have been recorded.
Zimbabwe has only done 20% of the covid-19 tests per capita that SA has done. Until the country starts testing aggressively our covid-19 figures will have no bearing with what is happening on the ground. One of these fine days there will be a no-holds barred inquiry into the country’s handling of the corona virus many people will sweat as the truth will show they played a significant role in falsifying the corona virus pandemic and therefore share the blame for the many lives lost unnecessarily!
Zimbabwe has lost a lot more than 222 to covid-19!
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has extended operating hours for retail, wholesale and service businesses from the previous 8am to 4.30pm period to 6.30am to 6.30pm.
Zimbabwe has not been testing near enough to say whether the corona virus is slowing down or to know if the number of cases should start to increase. The country is relaxing the corona virus measures based on nothing other than wishful thinking.
Some day when the country is free to carry out a thorough investigation of what is happening, it will come as no surprise to learn the country lost many, many lives to covid-19 than the government is letting on. Worst of all, it will be heart breaking to know many, many more deaths could have been avoided if the country had followed the common sense WHO advice to test, trace and track!
"IF you dream being leader of the country, you have had a nightmare," boasted Mnangagwa.
Coming from one who has just rigged elections for the umpteenth time, that smacks of impunity and arrogance!
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