Doctors vow to continue go-slow

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RDAZ president Brian Sampa

RESIDENTS doctors have vowed to continue with their go slow saying they will only call it off when Government meets their demands.

Dr Brian Sampa, the Resident Doctors Association of Zambia (RDAZ) president says the go slow was not politically motivated but that the doctors were fighting for all patients to receive quality health care services.

“Doctors are honorable people who cannot be bought by a politician,” Dr Sampa told #Kalemba in an interview.

Since Friday, resident doctors have been on go-slow demanding to be paid salary arrears accrued from non-payment after deployments and promotions.

They are also demanding that the government employs 500 more doctors to lessen their work burden in health care delivery.

“The motivation doctors have is the patient. We have very few doctors in Zambia and because of those few doctors, doctors have to work for than 10 hours in these hospitals. One doctor is taking care of 12,000 patients because that’s the ratio in Zambia,” he explained.

Dr Sampa said in some cases, one doctor was catering for an entire district.

“So we are fighting for patients to recieve good and quality health care in the country. Quality health is more than just seeing a doctor,” Dr Sampa said.

“That is why we are calling for the employment of the 500 extra doctors,” he added.

“We also have problems with positions, imagine a doctor starts work as junior resident medical officer, after they are done with internship, they are supposed to be promoted to senior resident medical officer and their salary scale is supposed to change. From there if they start their masters or something, they are further promoted to registrar and once they are done with their masters they are called senior registrar and the salary scale changes again. From senior register they become consultants. But all these years, doctors have been promoted on paper but the salary remains that of a junior doctor,” Dr Sampa complained.

He said suggestions that doctors and been paid to press for what was due to them and also fight for the good of patients was an insult to the medical profession.

Dr Sampa said the government was well aware of the doctors’ demands.

“This go slow is not politically motivated. We don’t even need to stress the fact that the issues we are talking about are issues which even the government knows,” he said.

Dr Sampa revealed that the doctors resorted to embark on a Go-Slow after protracted negotiations yielded no results.

“Noone has ever bought a doctor, not a single doctor, these are honorable people and I can assure you that it is an insult on the doctors to say they have been bought by a politician,” he said.

“What we are being told now is that doctors don’t think. How can the entire profession of doctors be bought by a politician,” he added.

On the call by PF media director Antonio Mwanza to have all protesting doctors fired, Dr Sampa said he was a civil servant who had no time to respond to politicians.

And on Inspector General of Police Kakoma Kanganja’s claims that some of the people who gathered at the University Teaching Hospital UTH Resident Doctors Hostels were imposters, Dr Sampa said everyone taking part in the protest was a qualified doctor.

“If they want, we can ask our doctors to be moving with their degrees,” Dr Sampa said.

He said it was unfair and unreasonable to threaten to deregister the RDAZ when all they were doing was asking for what was due to them.

“We just want to be heard, that’s our cry we know our employer has got too much power which they want to use against us, but we are already disadvantaged so just hear us,” he pleaded.

“So to end this go-slow, the ball is in the government’s court. They have to answer to our demands and this Go-slow will end. The go slow continues, nothing less nothing more – nothing has changed.

©Kalemba June 1, 2021

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