This archive report was first published on 29 November 2019.
On November 29, 2019, Zimbabwe's state doctors, who were fired for going on strike, rejected a government offer to return to work.
The doctors, who had been protesting against poor wages, including some earning less than $100 a month, had been fired by President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government in response to their job boycott.
According to the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA), the government's last wage offer would see the doctors earning a total package, including allowances, of Z$3,900 (about US$240) per month.
However, the ZHDA rejected the offer, stating that it was made without a new wage offer on the table.
The strike by junior and middle-level doctors has paralyzed state hospitals, used by Zimbabwe's poor majority, and has highlighted the country's economic crisis, which has seen resurgent inflation soaring to three-digit levels.
As a result, desperate patients, like Sheila Muzanenhamo, who lives in one of Harare's poorest townships, Epworth, have been turned away from hospitals due to a lack of doctors.
