Thursday, February 01, 2007

Ongoing Medical strike could cost lives

"...

As Zimbabwe's disgruntled doctors and nurses continue their strike over low salaries and poor working conditions, concern is growing about how the prolonged stayaway is affecting HIV-positive patients.

The strike by health professionals, now more than a month old, has left dozens of desperate patients without medical care in rural and urban areas. Doctors, who earn less than US$240 a month, opened the gate to what has become a growing torrent of wage protests by demanding an 8,000 percent increase to cushion themselves against inflation, and high transport and food costs.

AIDS service organisations are worried that HIV-positive people living in a country with one of the world's highest prevalence rates could be in real danger..."

Many people with HIV have already been displaced by Operation "Cleanup", and are unable to get medicine in their rural villages. However one worries if the pressure will be used to stop this strike, making a precedent for the government to break other strikes that may follow their example.

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