Chinhoyi, 07 October, 2020 / 8:40 pm (ACI Africa).
A Catholic Bishop in Zimbabwe has termed as “unconstitutional” the move by President Emerson Mnangagwa-led Government to enroll “junior (medical) doctors” into the army before they are allowed to work in State hospitals.
Bishop Raymond Tapiwa Mupandasekwa of Zimbabwe’s Chinhoyi Diocese who was presiding over Holy Mass Sunday, October 4 also said that the move is a cause of “great distress.”
“Dear friends, what great distress was brought upon us as a nation when the plight of our doctors was a few days ago responded to by the terrible proposition to turn our civilian doctors into soldiers who will from then on go by instruction?” Bishop Mupandasekwa posed in reference to the contents of the September 28 letter from Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health.
Issued by Zimbabwe’s Health Service Board (HSB), the letter announced the requirement that junior doctors in the Southern African enroll in the military first before they can be allowed to work in government hospitals.
“The Health Service Board was in August 2020 granted concurrence by the Ministry of Finance to appoint 407 junior resident medical officers (JRMO) on the conditions that some of them are appointed by the Defense Forces Services Commission,” the leadership of the HSB stated in the September 28.