UK-based Strive Masiyiwa
HARARE, Jan 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Zimbabwe’s junior doctors have agreed to return to work, ending a strike that has lasted for over four months, after they accepted an offer from a Zimbabwean telecoms billionaire.
The strike was one of the longest in the country’s history and brought the public healthcare system to its knees.
UK-based Strive Masiyiwa will pay each doctor a subsistence allowance of about $300 and provide them with transport to work, through a fund he set up.
Most of the doctors on strike were earning less than $100 a month.
The billionaire will fund the doctors for six months and it’s not clear what will happen after that.
The strike has killed an unknown number of people, according to the senior doctors’ association, who have called it a “silent genocide”.
The doctors went on strike pressing for wages to be pegged to the US dollar as a cushion against rising inflation in the worst economic crisis in a decade. — NNN-AGENCIES:
