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Doctors petition for minister’s ouster

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DOCTORS and other health professionals yesterday petitioned Parliament to push for the removal of Obadiah Moyo as Health minister, accusing him of running down the healthcare system.

BY RUVIMBO MUCHENJE

DOCTORS and other health professionals yesterday petitioned Parliament to push for the removal of Obadiah Moyo as Health minister, accusing him of running down the healthcare system.

Addressing journalists outside Parliament Building after marching from Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, Senior Hospital Doctors Association vice-president Raphael Makota said Moyo was the root cause of the impasse between healthcare givers and their employer.

“Your petitioners ask that Parliament, in light of its legislative and oversight roles, censure the Minister of Health so that he can stop his actions that are destroying the healthcare system of the country and causing many lives to be lost,” Makota said.

“…Failing which he should be relieved of his duties before he destroys the nation’s investment in healthcare that has been built over many years.”

Makota was speaking on the backdrop of the flexi hours system introduced in public hospitals that disables handover, takeover of duties by healthcare givers.

“The workers are brought to work in buses and as they disembark, their counterparts who were on duty are already waiting in a queue to board the same bus. There is therefore no more handover between workers. This has destroyed continuity of care in hospitals,” Makota said.

“The healthcare workers must be capacitated enough for them to be able to come to work under a standard shift system that promotes good patient care. The flexi-hour system being implemented in public hospitals is a patient killer.”

This is the second march in four months by the doctors who are demanding their salaries to be pegged against the US dollar.