HARARE – Striking doctors thumbed their noses at the government on Wednesday by insisting they would not attend disciplinary hearings ordered by the Health Services Board (HSB), their employer.

Doctors at public hospitals are deep in the second month of a job boycott after rejecting a 60 percent salary increase offer from the government.

The strike, which the Labour Court ruled was illegal, has paralysed hospitals and left patients stranded.

The HSB has withheld salaries from doctors not reporting for work and also summoned them individually to disciplinary hearings.

In a letter to the HSB on Wednesday, the doctors were defiant.

“This serves to inform you that the incapacitated doctors countrywide will not be able to attend the disciplinary hearings and any threats should stop forthwith to pave way for dialogue, provided an offer is made at interbank rate,” the doctors said in their letter.

Dr Mthabisi Anele Bhebhe, one of the leaders of the doctors’ union, said doctors want the government to go back to when it last paid salaries in United States dollars in February, and convert those salaries that obtained at the time to the prevailing interbank rate.

“They should not waste time thinking doctors are scared of the so-called disciplinary action and will therefore return to work in fear,” he said.

“No amount of intimidation will deter us. Our livelihood and that of those who depend on us is at stake here. We demand U.S. dollar-rated salaries.”

The broke government is facing pressure from the rest of the public sector workers, who have tabled similar demands as the doctors.

After adopting the United States dollar in 2009 following the demise of the local currency to inflation, Zimbabwe took steps towards a new currency in February this year when it allowed the surrogate currency, the RTGS/bond note, to float against the United States dollar, beginning the hemorrhage on salaries.

In June, the government announced the return of the Zimbabwe dollar as the sole legal tender, and the new currency has rapidly lost value triggering a wave of price increases. Salaries have failed to keep pace, impoverishing workers who now say they are not able to feed their families.

Teachers last week announced they will work a two-day week. Nurses are already on a three-day week as transport costs have escalated.