Docs cry for ‘proper’ risk allowance …fighting Covid-19 demanding

THE Resident Doctors Association of Zambia (RDAZ) says health care workers across the country are disturbed due to lack of motivation from Government in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

The organisation has called on Government to motivate healthcare workers especially with a proper offer of a risk allowance as well as compensation.

RDAZ outgoing president, Isaac Sakala, said the need for Government to quickly move in and help the doctors could not be over emphasised because they had already done enough at the stage.

Dr Sakala said in an interview in Kitwe yesterday that "Government has not honoured the request that doctors made with regards to cushioning their burden while fighting Covid-19.

"In the proposals, we had requested that Government provides compensation to the doctors because if doctors died today while fighting Covid-19, their families would not be compensated with anything and this alone is a demotivation to the doctors."

Dr Sakala said the two percent risk allowance that Government offered to the healthcare workers was too small for the risks they put themselves into.

"Health care workers risk their lives and spend weeks at isolation facilities and it will only be fair that they get what they deserve. We need to have the risk allowance which will be more than two percent," he added.

Dr Sakala observed that the majority of doctors were young who had not served for more than 15 years, the reason he said would create a challenge if they had died due to the virus without having any compensation agreement.

He said doctors had been working in isolation facilities and isolated from their families for months without any logistical support.

He said this was disturbing especially that the Ministry of Labour and Social Security mentioned that no employer would isolate the employees without agreeing on how they would be assisted with logistics.