By Tawanda Musariri

Striking doctors yesterday dropped their ambitious demand to be paid in foreign currency. The doctors have been undergoing job action demanding payment in United States dollars, fuel and allowances among other demands.

In a bipartite negotiation round table with the Minister of Health and Childcare, Dr Obediah Moyo, the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZIMA), the Health Services Board (HSB) and the Hospital Doctors Association (HDA), the doctors backed down and instead settled for non monetary incentives proposed by the employer.

Among the incentives proposed by the Health Services Board, which is the employer of all public health personnel, are the provision of fuel to doctors, exemption from queueing for fuel at service stations, the improvement of supply of medical sutures and consumables and vehicle loans among others.

The vehicle loan scheme for health personnel is an existing $10 million financial package which has already been financed to the tune of $4 million. Applicants to the scheme are already drawing down the fund.

In his brief to the media after the closed door meeting,  Dr Moyo said that government was going to utilise some low hanging fruits to meet the doctors' demands though such demands cannot be met the way doctors had designed. He said government was incapacitated to pay doctors in foreign currency which he said was in short supply. He emphasized that all the challenges facing not just the health sector but other sectors both public and private were a product of the unavailability of sufficient foreign currency. He said it was therefore not sustainable to pay doctors with a currency whose continued availability cannot be guaranteed.

Meanwhile, the doctors' leadership have encouraged striking doctors to return to work as the negotiations to find a lasting solution are ongoing.

Leaders of the doctors' associations were in unanimous agreement that the negotiations were encouraging and progressive hence the need to instruct their followers to shelve the industrial action and exploit the negotiations while giving life saving service to the public.

"We have put fuel arrangements at all health institutions so that our medical teams can be able to go to work and come back home. Most of the health institutions have got fuel tanks. We have made arrangements with the ministry of energy and they have clearly indicated that they will be able to assist us in this regard. We even went to the extent of asking for our doctors and critical healthcare workers to be given an exemption in queueing for fuel so they can go back to offer the essential service to patients," said Dr Moyo.

Speaking for ZHDA, the association's president, Dr Elias Muzoremba expressed optimism with the outcome of the employer-employee negotiation saying that their next course of action will be influenced by the feedback from their membership, which feedback would be made today.

Meanwhile, the secretary general for ZIMA, Dr Sacrifice Chirisa implored the media to be patient and give the negotiations a chance saying the ground covered so far was indicative of return of normal service delivery in the health sector by the Christmas holiday.

Chirisa empathised with the employer saying the problems facing the health industry cannot be solved in a day and that their membership was receptive of the idea of solving the issues one at a time as the situation allowed.