Nurses sue Govt over salaries

• Hundreds go for 2 months without a salary
• Govt using strong-arm tactics
• Employer ignores court ruling

By Kundai Marunya

Nurses have resolved to take Government to court over two months of unpaid salaries and a thirteenth cheque, Nhau has learnt.
This comes after some nurses who are members of the Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZINA) refused to follow a directive from the Secretary for Health and Child Care, Air Commodore Jasper Chimedza, cancelling flexible working hours and ordering the resumption of a 40-hour working week.
The defiant nurses stuck to their flexible working hours, prompting Government to strike them off the payroll, thus losing out on November and December salaries which also included their annual bonus.
A total of 1200 nurses, 548 of whom work at Sally Mugabe Central Hospital, while others work at Mpilo General Hospitals and United Bulawayo Hospital, were affected.
Government is, however, accused of coercing 458 nurses from Sally Mugabe Central Hospital into apologising to the Minister of Health and Child Care General (Rtd) Dr Constantino Chiwenga for them to receive their payments.
“The nurses who were paraded apologising on television and in the press were actually coerced into doing so by the Government which wants to save face having lost a High Court case that overturned their directive on resumption of a 40-hour working week,” said ZINA president Enock Dongo.
“The Government even went on to appeal the judgment but still lost, despite having the Attorney-General representing them. Nurses were tricked that they were going to meet the minister to discuss their outstanding salaries that were not paid despite showing up for duty and adhering to the court’s decision.
“They were then ordered to apologise or continue without payment. Considering that they had spent two months without pay, and needed to feed their families especially during the festive season, it was understandable that some of them complied and received their payments.”
Dongo said they are suing Government for being in contempt of court.
“The Government’s stance not to pay nurses despite the court’s ruling is in contempt of court thus we will soon be going back to court suing those who disregard the law so that the remainder of our members get paid.”
A total of 628 defiant nurses are yet to be paid 90 of whom are from Sally Mugabe General Hospital.
They are, however, still reporting for duty in the hope that Government will respect the High Court ruling.
“No one is above the law. Two different judges ruled in our favour and their judgments should be followed,” said Dongo.
“We want our workers to be paid what they are owed and for the Government to follow the flexible working hours ruled in our favour of by the courts.”
Ministry of Health and Child Care public relations manager Donald Mujiri referred Nhau to the Health Services Board (HSB). The HSB had not responded to questions sent by Nhau by the time of publication.
The health sector is suffering from an unmotivated workforce due to low remuneration and Government’s strong-arm tactics.
Long queues at public health institutions are now a daily occurrence while failure to access service has been normalised.
Government and health workers have for the past couple of years been at loggerheads over working conditions, ill-equipped facilities and poor renumeration.
Junior doctors went on a prolonged strike late last year, and over 500 of them were fired by Government.
They were asked to apologise before being ordered back to work in 48 hours. In January this year, telecoms billionaire Strive Masiyiwa had to step in to end yet another prolonged doctors strike.
The Econet Wireless boss set up a 100m Zimbabwean dollar (US$6.25m; £4.8m) fund which would be used to pay up to 2 000 doctors a subsistence allowance of about US$300 a month to help them with transport and living costs.
This time, Government has been at war with nurses, some of whom are refusing to be strong-armed.
Their demands have often been around lack of medication in hospitals, rundown equipment and poor renumeration. Nhau/Indaba