Chandré Prince Sunday Times June 27
Most packages are ‘small change’
Militant South African doctors, angered by the government’s “Mickey Mouse” wage offer, are now intent on shutting down the country’s public health system.
Strike action, which this week crippled medical services in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, is set to intensify and spread throughout the country if minister of health Dr Aaron Motsoaledi fails to revise the offer he tabled on Wednesday during a Bargaining Council sitting.
Doctors are demanding a 50% wage increase, but Motsoaledi offered increases ranging between 18% and 60%, citing challenges his department faced in terms of major salary discrepancies. His offer will cost more than R1-billion.
But doctors said the latest offer merely included extras such as overtime, pension and scarce-skills allowances in the package, which created the impression that much bigger increases were offered.
In an unusual move, Motsoaledi announced the packages to the public before tabling it in the council chamber, which caused further outbursts from doctors.
The president of the South African Registrars’ Association and spokesman for the SA Medical Association, Dr Lebogang Phahladira, said doctors had had enough of bullying tactics and that the “blatant lies” about the offer on table had added fuel to the fire.
Referring to the packages as a “Mickey Mouse offer”, Phahladira said the minister had lied to the public about lucrative packages, creating the impression that doctors were “greedy”.
“What was presented to the public is a joke, ” he said.
According to an analysis of the offer by Sama consultants, it translates to increases of between 1% and 22%.
Motsoaledi said the situation, especially in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, had now “forced us to use the laws of this country to ensure that we save lives”. He denied that he was “lying” and stressed that the offer was not finalised yet.
“It is not correct for doctors to abandon the sick at a time when we are negotiating to resolve the challenges we all agree upon,” said Motsoaledi.
But Phahladira said strike action would definitely intensify in all provinces this week. He added that not even the urgent court interdict granted to the government in KwaZulu-Natal yesterday afternoon would distract them from fighting for their cause.
“A paper from a judge won’t make us go back to work,” Phahladira warned.
During a meeting on Friday, doctors in the Western Cape unanimously voted to completely shut down primary healthcare hospitals, with secondary and tertiary hospitals operating with emergency staff only. By 2pm, their decision had already been implemented.
A Western Cape doctor, who was at the meeting, said they would meet with hospital managers tomorrow morning and advise them to start working on contingency plans should the government fail to meet the doctors’ demands by Friday.
At present, only skeleton staff were operating in emergency units, including intensive care, but if no resolution was reached they too would have no staff.
“Even Groote Schuur is going to be non-functional. The government has the money, but health is just not being treated as a priority,” said the doctor.
He added that the government was spending billions on next year’s soccer World Cup but could not appreciate the custodians of healthcare in South Africa.
The doctor said the wage offer for interns, which translated to increases of up to 53%, was the only acceptable offer and that the rest was “small change”.
July 3, 2009 at 9:47 am
Will all due respect, I do agree with the doctors and nurses that they need to be paid better,l but to go on a 2 week strike leaving people to die, is just not ethical, these people signed an oath to help the sick and for them doing this is going against all that.
July 3, 2009 at 9:47 am
Will all due respect, I do agree with the doctors and nurses that they need to be paid better,l but to go on a 2 week strike leaving people to die, is just not ethical, these people signed an oath to help the sick and for them doing this is going against all that.