Kgomotso Mathe
30 June 2009
Johannesburg — STATE doctors in KwaZulu-Natal yesterday defied a court order that they return to work, even as the Public Sector Bargaining Council expressed confidence that talks on the occupation specific dispensation for health workers would be concluded today.
"We will continue with the strike until our demands are met. We are defying the court order," said Dr Shailendra Sham, a spokesman for the striking doctors in the province.
On Saturday, the Labour Court in Durban granted the Department of Health an interim interdict ordering health workers to return to work.
Sham said doctors were angered by the department's move to suspend some who had taken part in the strike.
"We have been told that six doctors have been suspended and some have been receiving phone calls from the administration office."
Doctors gathered to protest outside the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in Durban yesterday. Orthopaedic intern at Addington Hospital Dr Eileen Rajaram said she had been served with a letter of dismissal.
"They came to my house at 10.30 last night (Sunday) to hand me a letter to say I was dismissed from work with immediate effect for unlawful conduct," said Rajaram.
"And that I didn't respond to a warning letter that was issued to me. But I didn't respond because I didn't receive it," she said. "I love my job, I studied my whole life for this and to be treated like this, it's unfair."
Democratic Alliance health spokesman John Steenhuisen said it was "sheer lunacy" for the department to consider dismissing doctors. " The province is facing a critical shortage of doctors -- who will replace them if they are dismissed?"
Steenhuisen said the strike had been "a long time coming" and called the government's latest offer to doctors "unsatisfactory".
But, he said, the interdict stated that doctors had to return to work and the rule of law had to be obeyed.
Department spokesman Chris Maxon said it was doing head counts to identify doctors who had defied the court order. He was not aware of any doctor who had been suspended for taking part in the strike.
Cape Town's Groote Schuur Hospital was coping despite a work stoppage by about 200 doctors and pharmacists, chief operational officer Dr Saadiq Kariem said yesterday.
The hospital had so far not had to postpone any operations, and all "critical areas", such as emergency admissions, were functioning fully.
The Gauteng health department was trying to ascertain yesterday whether the death of a pedestrian was due to the doctors' strike. Mavis Ncube, 25, was knocked down by a car in Sandown yesterday morning. Two state hospitals refused to admit her. She was later taken to a private clinic, but died of her injuries. With Sapa
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