HARARE – Doctors have hit out at controversial new plans by the government to ban health workers from going on strike.

Health minister Obadiah Moyo announced the plans on Tuesday following a cabinet meeting, on the day that doctors went on strike demanding that their salaries be pegged to the United States dollar in the face of spiralling living costs.

The Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA), in a statement on Wednesday, said the proposals were “unsettling” and “unconstitutional”.

“The motive is to silence the cries of disgruntled doctors who are simply demanding a fair labour wage and fair labour practices,” the ZHDA said. “The bill will cause an unintended severe brain drain with medical personnel seeking alternative and better working conditions in places where professionals are treated with dignity and fairness.”

Under the planned controversial new law, health service will be designated as “an essential service that should be provided for at all times.”

Moyo said once the proposed law was approved, health workers would only be allowed to picket at their employer’s offices for a few hours and not go on strike indefinitely.

“We are in a democratic country where people are allowed to voice their concerns, but if you are part of an essential service… you should show that you have gone through thorough training and part of that training should have made you understand that you are there to save lives,” Moyo said.

Doctors went on strike on Tuesday, their fourth job boycott since President Emmerson Mnangagwa came to power in November 2017.

“We are not in the wards, we are not at the hospitals. We simply do not have the means, we are incapacitated,” Peter Magombeyi, president of the ZHDA, told AFP.

Salaries are fast losing value as Zimbabwe battles a currency crisis and triple-digit inflation.

A junior doctor’s monthly salary in the Zimbabwe currency is now equivalent to around US$100, Magombeyi said.

“We don’t have money for transport, we don’t have money for food, we don’t have money to pay our kids’ schools fees, we don’t have money for rentals and we can’t keep on subsidising the employer anymore.”

Talks with the government on Monday failed to yield any solution.

On Wednesday, state media quoting officials from the Health Service Board reported that new allowances had been approved for the doctors by the finance ministry, over and above a 60 percent salary adjustment proposed last week.

But the ZHDA, in a statement on Wednesday, maintained that the reports were “unverified as such information has not been communicated officially with the ZHDA executive.”

“We would like to make it very clear that we simply do not have the capacity to report for duty anymore. Unless and until this grievance is dealt with accordingly, we will not be able to resume work,” the doctors said, adding that they “derive no pleasure in abandoning patients.”

“We call upon the minister and the employer to find a solution to this impasse before they endanger more lives,” the doctors said.

The doctors want salaries to be pegged to the prevailing foreign exchange interbank rates.

Doctors went on strike in December over salaries and conditions, and only called it off after 40 days on promises to resolve their grievances.

State hospitals cater for the majority of Zimbabweans who cannot afford private care while wealthier patients, including top politicians, fly out to neighbouring South Africa and even beyond to Asian countries for medical attention.

Zimbabwe’s health system has collapsed in recent decades as the economy tanked, with shortages of basics like cash, fuel, bread and medicines and surging prices when the goods are available.

President Mnangagwa, who took over from long-time ruler Robert Mugabe and won a disputed election in July last year, pledged to revamp the already ailing economy. But the country has seen growing strikes and protests as the economy continues to falter.

(Additional reporting AFP)