All the juniors country wide will from Monday stage a go slow to press for the payment of arrears, gratuity and settling in allowances accrued from 2015.
A go slow by medical doctors means only emergency cases will be attended to.
Resident Doctors Association President Dr Byran Sampa revealed that the resolution to go on a go slow was arrived at after a virtual meeting held on Wednesday evening.
The meeting was held to chart the way forward after the earlier ultimatum issued to government to address the doctors grievances was ignored.
The ultimatum expired on Monday.
In a memo seen in Lusaka and addressed to all 3,500 doctors, Dr Sampa is instructing all doctors to stop work until all issues are addressed.
The doctors want government to pay the K150 million owed in arrears arising from unpaid gratuities and settling in allowances.
The doctors also want government to clearly state when it shall commence the recruitment of doctors as 530 qualified doctors still remain unemployed.
Dr Sampa who was just recently elected as RDAZ President said the doctors are resolved to press on with their demands because government has shown lack of willingness to address the issues.
“From 2015, these issues have been with government, the team which was there before me even produced a Position Paper which was even tabled in Cabinet but up to now, nothing is happening. We have escalated the matter to the highest office in the land and we cannot continue like this,” Dr Sampa said.
He said efforts to engage the Ministry of Health point to a lack of funding from the Treasury as one of the key issues affecting the Ministry’s operations.
“We need to recruit new doctors. The current Doctor-Patient ratio stands at 1 to 12,000 and this is unacceptable. The 530 unemployment doctors can all be absorbed by the system and we can’t still have a shortfall of 3,000 more doctors. Government just needs to do the correct thing and employ these doctors who were trained a high cost.”
Medicine is not a money making career but rather a vocation. It is disgusting when those who have chosen to save lives decide to strike or take action that could lead to loss of life. Disgusting
DISGUSTING HANDING OUT CASH AND EVERYTHING ELSE TO BUY VOTES BUT CANNOT PAY OUR DOCTORS !!!!!!!!!
PF look at lack of priorities , are doctors going to live by that vacation , also just avoiding one to five by elections , GRZ would pay off the said 150m and note that 2015 is the time Lungu came in , so how can you vote for his third term , so vote for change which has only one option .
even the salaries and allowances that we have served for Ministers not being office for the next three months that can too help settle off this important commitment
WELL DONE DRS KEEP IT UP !!!!!!!!!!
CRY FOR ENPOWERMENT THERE’S LOTS OF TAX PAYERS MONEY THERE FOR YOU BEING DISHED OUT FREELY
TALIKNG OF LIVES WHY DOESNT OUR PRESIDENT STEP UP TO THE PODIUM AND TELL THE NATION WHY HE HAS HAD/HASN’T HAD THE VACCINE
IS IT BECAUSE HE MORE FOCUS ON HIS THRONE ???
So much cash was being dished out by PF, they could not channel it to pay doctors their dues? What a risk to take by our leaders. Why is it so difficult to pay our doctors what is rightfully due to them? Our leaders even awarded themselves salary increments, and Kz says they are in vocation employment?
It’s their right to protest against payments owed to them by government. They also have families to feed. The “plandemic” has shown that when disaster strikes and the whole country is on lockdown, these are the only people that are allowed to work because their job matters most.
So PF has given money to surrogate opposition parties, buy gullible opposition members, corrupt the ECZ and ConCourt but can not find money to pay junior Doctors!
Very good example how not to govern a country!
Lungu has had money to bribe chiefs with bicycles but no money for doctors? Its disgusting that these arrears have been accruing since 2015 when he started ruining Zambia’s economic indicators.
Let former minister of health Nkandu Luo talk to doctors.
Go slow during elections campaigns?
PF hang yourselves.
@Edwin Zulu, they are like any other professionals and have depends to support. It is not just about saving lives. Well done for fighting for what is theirs!?
LETS SUPPORT THE DOCTORS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have money for all the campaign but no
Money for doctors who are risking their lives
To save the patient.When doctors ask for good pay we say they have to worry about
Their job.They are people who also need to
Survive with this biting economy.
Why dont journalists go on a go slow to protest the State’s interference in their job? Only doctors are a well organised profession in Zed
This PF Criminal Enterprise of a Government has cash Money to dish out to queuing members of the public,to buy washed up politicians like Kambwili,but NOT to Doctors.
It’s just yet another Scandal.
Like the languishing retirees settlement of entitlements to doctors is also being treated as a voluntary vocation so with all the cash that PF is throwing around openly to buy votes, professionals as doctors have to fight for their dues! People who are relatives will be lost as the go-slow takes effect, sad! But then what is the recourse route for the doctors ‘crying’ for their entitlements since 2015? Fight on Gods people for politicians are funny that should a new leadership take the reigns of the country they might as well refuse to adopt the outstanding bill! Wish it enters into the campaign discourse!
The current Doctor-Patient ratio stands at 1 to 12,000. Wrong! You have included, in 12000, Zambians who have never visited a hospital. Eg Mulyokela
This action by Junior Doctors will undermine the PF chances in this election.
Must be addressed quickly otherwise the longer it goes on, the effect will become irreversible even after resolved.
PF THROUGH ECL (only PF still in office) MUST ACT NOW.
What is disheartening is that some hospitals in the peri-urban areas have only 1 doctor on site to attend to thousands of patients…is this okay? Why not employ more doctors so that people can receive quality and timely health care?
Additionally, despite their sacrifice to save lives under very stressful conditions, the doctors have not been paid salary arrears dating back to 2015….guys…even if being a bedoctor is a calling, we should feel for them…they have families too.
Another issue on the ground is, some specialist doctors are being paid salaries of a junior doctor, because the government has failed to create positions for specialists….it’s very discouraging…….senior resident doctors alike are getting salaries of juniors….for how long shall doctors endure such…
A labourer deserves his wage and if you value that labour you must be prepared to pay for it. The Zambian government obviously does not value the services of doctors and this is shown by 1. Not compensating them adequately and 2. Not employing them in spite of boasting about the many new hospitals they have built.
Iwe Kaizar See Tan Yorko, every time you comment its always bull sheet . Can you for once stop behaving like a wild animal (sorry to wild animals most of them are well behaved and will not tolerate you), Zambia is in the hands a clueless man who is dragging it back to stone age where you comfortably belong.