Doctors in Zambia go for 7 months without pay

Close to 200 newly recruited doctors in Zambia have not received their salary from the government since they were deployed seven months ago.

The worst reported cases are at the University Teaching Hospital where 26 doctors are working without pay and at the Levy Mwanawasa General Hospital where only 4 doctors receive their salaries while 28 are not on the payroll.

Ministry of health officials have confirmed they are engaging in talks with the Resident Doctors Association in an attempt to resolve the issue.

Speaking following a press release by the government banning doctors from engaging in private practice, Resident Doctors Association of Zambia General Secretary Francis Mupeta reminded government that Zambian doctors have sacrificed a lot and given up so many of their rights as workers for the sake of saving the public.

Doctor Mupeta expressed his sentiments saying that it is a casualisation of the medical profession for a doctor to work for seven months without being paid.

“Doctors went for 5 straight years without a pay raise until this year when they received a nominal rise that is not even worth talking about. Resident doctors are currently being underpaid their fuel allowance for the past 5 years and have continued to live on the promissory note of the “issue being rectified,” Dr Mupeta told Lusaka Times.

Dr Mupeta further said that the doctors work with very limited resources and yet they don’t complain.

Sources from the ministry of health in Zambia however indicated that 139 doctors are working without their names appearing anywhere in the payroll.

It is also noted that a number of qualified doctors are yet to be employed.