HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe enacted a regulation that prohibits well being employees resembling nurses and medical doctors from collaborating in extended strikes, and imposes penalties of as much as six months in jail for employees or union leaders who defiant the media, state communications and a authorities spokesperson. he stated on Wednesday.
The supply, signed into regulation by President Emmerson Mnangagwa final week however made public now, stipulates that well being employees can solely strike for as much as three days as a result of they’re thought of an important service.
Well being professionals should proceed to offer emergency providers throughout a strike, authorities spokesman Nick Mangwana tweeted.
Different international locations, together with neighboring South Africa and Zambia, restrict strikes by well being care employees however impose much less extreme punishment, resembling layoffs, suspensions or diminished pay.
Frequent, weeks-long strikes by well being employees have for years strained Zimbabwe’s public well being amenities, that are already in poor situation because of dilapidated infrastructure and shortages of medicines.
Public well being employees argue that their salaries (round $100 a month for a lot of) and lack of fundamental tools make their jobs untenable.
The southern African nation, as soon as house to a number of the finest public healthcare amenities and workers in Africa, is now battling mind drain as nurses and medical doctors search higher alternatives elsewhere, primarily in the UK.