Hospitals, clinics in limbo as doctors protest
By Tony Nkhoma
UNCERTAINTY has gripped the public healthcare sector as unemployed volunteer doctors who account for 50 per cent of physicians in government and grant aided hospitals and mini hospitals are expected to withdraw their labour today.
And the Resident Doctors Association of Zambia (RDAZ) has demanded respect from government, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the Office of the Public Protector.
The withdrawal is in protect at the inaction of government on allegations of corruption in the last recruitment of doctors by the government.
RDAZ president Dr Paul Chibwe said there had been no seriousness from the government on the plight of the unemployed medical doctors in the country.
Dr Chibwe said his association had reported to ACC the irregularities in the last recruitment of doctors in the Ministry of Health, but they had been ignored and no tangible results had come out.
In an interview with The Mast at the weekend, Dr Chibwe said even after reporting the suspected corruption that had marred the recruitment to the Office of the Public Protector, there had been no serious engagement.
“We’ve been engaging but no response. We’ve had sessions to look at the past recruitment, where we had irregularities. We reported that to ACC. We reported to Public Protector, but there was no serious engagement from the stakeholders,” Dr Chibwe said.
He said despite all the efforts to engage government, ACC and the Office of the Public Protector, the matter was still unresolved because everything was okay for them.
Over 50 per cent of the doctors in very unit of the public hospitals were all volunteers whose plight needed serious attention from those responsible.
“So if you tend to operate in a unit, over 50 per cent will be volunteers. I can give an example of my facility in a department, internal medicine department, where a team of nine people and only two are employed, meaning seven are volunteers. So in every unit, all these, the first doctors, maybe consultants, the first doctors you meet, all those, three quarters of those are unemployed,” Dr Chibwe said.
RDAZ allowed its member doctors to man the positions because they were only told every day that the key was patient care.
“And we’ve turned a blind eye to everything else in the name of ‘let’s move the system and contribute to universal health coverage’. But we need respect. We need the voice to be acknowledged when we call upon stakeholders. Let them respond accordingly,” Dr Chibwe said.
On Friday Dr Chibwe announced the withdrawal of RDAZ voluntary medical services in public health institutions effective tomorrow.
He said the persistent reliance on unemployed resident doctors to provide essential medical services in over 50 per cent of the country’s public hospitals under voluntary arrangements could not be allowed to go on forever.
While his association recognised and commended the dedication to patient care, the situation was unsustainable in the absence of a clear commitment and engagement from the relevant authorities on the employment of the volunteer doctors.
Dr Chibwe said the decision to halt voluntary services had not been taken lightly but stemmed from the urgent need to address the longstanding issue of unpaid medical labour and secure fair working conditions for members.
The Ministry of Health is yet to respond to the drastic action.
