This archive report was first published on 3 September 2019.
On September 3, 2019, Zimbabwean doctors embarked on a strike, rejecting a 60% salary increase offered by the government.
The strike, the second this year by the medics, followed months of protracted salary negotiations between civil servants and the government for better pay and conditions.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government was struggling to contain runaway inflation caused by currency reforms that saw the country ending the decade-long dollarization of the economy in June 2019.
Despite offering the rest of the civil service a 76% salary increase in a bid to avert crippling strikes by state workers, the doctors said they could no longer afford to report to work due to the erosion of their salaries by inflation.
Doctors' representatives met government officials on Monday in a last-ditch effort to stop the strike, but the talks were unsuccessful.
According to Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association president Peter Mugombeyi, doctors wanted the government to peg their salaries in US dollars as the local currency was losing value fast.
