[DEBATE] : (Fwd) SA doctors on strike

[Patrick Bond]

(Anyone have an update here?)

Doctors’ protest action spreads
24.04.2009 Khopotso Bodibe

Doctors at Soweto’s Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital are the latest to 
join their colleagues in various parts of the country in a protest 
action over low pay and poor working conditions.

A doctor that did not want to be named said that doctors at the hospital 
“took a collective decision to go on a go-slow”.

“It means that we are offering emergency services, as in casualty and 
emergency services in the wards, as needed. But doctors will be 
sitting-in in their tea room and they will be carrying placards and 
demonstrating”, he said.

Protest action at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, the largest health 
care centre in the southern hemisphere, started yesterday afternoon 
ahead of a crucial bargaining council meeting to be held this morning.

The protest action started at Dr George Mukhari Hospital in Tshwane, 
Gauteng, last Thursday. It has since spread to a number of hospitals in 
Limpopo, the North West where 50 doctors were dismissed in Mafikeng as 
well as to the Free State, the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga. Reading from 
his notes, the anonymous Chris Hani Baragwanath doctor listed their 
demands as follows:

“Safe working conditions and better resources to improve patient care, 
immediate filling of vacant posts, OSD implementation as presented to 
the bargaining council with effect as soon as possible, immediate 
reinstatement of doctors dismissed in the North West without any 
disciplinary action”.

“If all of this is not agreed to within 48 hours, then this may 
escalate”, he added, warning of a possible full-scale national strike 
action.