Govt orders docs back to work

Government has called on public service doctors to end their strike and return to work immediately, saying their dispute is doing "considerable harm" to the sector.

Briefing the media in Cape Town on Thursday, following Cabinet's fortnightly meeting the day before, government spokesman Themba Maseko said the strike was depriving ordinary South Africans of access to health care.

"Government calls on all the medical professionals who are still on strike to return to work, and resume their duties with immediate effect," he said. This should be done with the knowledge "government has listened, understands their plight and that conditions in our public health facilities will improve in time".

Maseko said there was a responsibility to ensure citizens were not deprived of their rights to quality health care. He said Cabinet welcomed the progress made in negotiations with unions regarding the occupation specific dispensation.

The government's final offer had been tabled and negotiated in the Public Service Bargaining Chamber.

Dispute ‘doing more harm’ to sector
"The [Cabinet] meeting expressed the hope that the unions will do all they can to ensure that details of the offer are properly explained to their members so that an agreement could be signed sooner rather than later, as the offer represents an improvement in the salaries of the medical staff.

"The labour dispute is doing considerable harm, adding more strain to an already strained public health sector, and in the process depriving ordinary South Africans access to desperately needed health care," Maseko said.

Doctors call for fired docs to be reinstated
Meanwhile calls increased for the reinstatement of those dismissed for taking part in an unprotected strike.

The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) called for the reinstatement of those dismissed after many provincial health departments were granted court interdicts compelling workers to return to work. Those who failed to comply with the order faced disciplinary action or dismissal.

Medical sector unions were taking government's revised pay offer back to their members for endorsement.

Health department spokesman Fidel Hadebe said the government had not yet received an indication of whether the offer was palatable to union members, but added that labour had 14 days in which to make a decision.

Cosatu said the main stumbling block to settling the matter was the dismissal of doctors. "Cosatu accepts that their strike was illegal, and supports the view that essential service workers should find other methods of resolving disputes... We concede that the strike has hurt the public.

Main issue still the OSD
"Nevertheless we appeal to the minister of health and provincial MECs for health to reverse the dismissals, so that we have only one issue on the table - the draft agreement on OSD [occupation specific dispensation] salary increases, and not the dismissals," the union federation said in a statement.

Hadebe said the dismissal letters issued to doctors stated they should provide a reason why they embarked on the illegal action. He said government would look at the reasons provided by doctors and decide whether their dismissals stood or not.

Meanwhile, KwaZulu-Natal doctors on Wednesday vowed to continue with the strike if government did not reinstate more than 200 fired doctors. On Monday 244 doctors were served with dismissal letters by the KwaZulu-Natal health department. They were dismissed after they defied a Durban Labour Court interim interdict compelling health care professionals to return to their posts. – (Sapa, July 2009)

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