Rangarirai Shoko, PANA Correspondent . Africa News Online. January 7, 2000
HARARE, Zimbabwe (PANA) - Zimbabwe's health minister, Timothy Stamps, said Friday 127 Cuban doctors would arrive in the country in January on secondment to help ease a critical shortage of medical staff.
President Robert Mugabe secured the Cuban doctors from President Fidel Castro during a visit to Havana in September at the height of a crippling seven-week strike by local doctors over low pay and poor working conditions.
"I am very impressed at the way the Cubans are so committed to their work and not money. All of them are ready to work in the rural areas," Stamps, just back from Cuba to formalise the doctors' secondment to Zimbabwe, said.
Most local doctors, complaining of poor conditions of service, emigrate to neighbouring countries such as Botswana and South Africa, where remuneration for medical staff is higher, creating a shortage of such medical personnel at home.
Despite government incentives, Zimbabwean doctors who chose to remain home were also reluctant to work in rural areas where working conditions were worse than in the cities.
Local universities produce more than 1,000 doctors a year, but most of them leave the country after graduation.
Although the state topped their pay by up to 100 percent to end a crippling 1999 strike, local doctors said their pay was still lower compared to their counterparts in neighbouring countries.
AFRICA NEWS ONLINE.
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