HARARE, Sept 23 (AFP) - Zimbabwe's ailing health service, where staff say broken equipment means blood-stained linen from AIDS patients is handwashed, was collapsing Thursday as a strike by junior doctors entered its third day.

Nationwide, the country's biggest hospitals began discharging patients who were already in bed and stopped admitting new ones, medical sources said.

The usually crowded casualty rooms at Harare's main Parirenyatwa Hospital were almost deserted as the sick and injured were turned away, with a few expatriate or senior doctors attending emergency cases only.

The strike by some 400 junior doctors, who are bound to work in government service for two years after graduating, has won sympathy from senior medical staff and from Health Minister Timothy Stamps.

They are striking not only for better pay, but for an overhaul of the entire health system, which they say has reached the stage where they watch patients die because of a lack of essential supplies.

The president of the Hospital Doctors' Association, Nyasha Masuka, told AFP that at Harare Hospital in the capital, unemployed youths were being used to handwash soiled linen because the boilers had broken down.

"They are handwashing blood-stained linen used by patients with HIV (the virus which leads to AIDS)," he said. "And doctors have no gloves."

An expatriate doctor at Parirenyatwa confirmed to AFP that equipment in the casualty ward was "grossly inadequate".

"There is not even soap for doctors to wash their hands -- and even if we could there are no towels to dry them on," he said.

"You can't examine patients properly because you don't have the right equipment.

"One week there will be no intravenous drips, next week no blood supplies or x-ray films," said the doctor, who requested anonymity.

He said some of the more senior doctors were joining the juniors on strike, in sympathy with their plight and to protest working conditions.

Masuka and fellow junior doctors, who were gathered outside their residence at Parirenyatwa Hospital, said they regretted the suffering their action was causing patients but vowed to remain on strike until their demands were met.

"Junior doctors are doing the work of five doctors because the health service is so short-staffed. We sometimes work 56 hours continuously," said Masuka.

He said the 400 junior doctors on strike represented nearly half the total of 900 doctors in government service, and he had been told by senior staff that the health ministry was considering closing one of Harare's hospitals.

During the last strike by government doctors in 1995, army medical staff were brought into the hospitals to maintain basic services.

This time, Masuka said, that option is not open to the government because most army medics are with Zimbabwe's troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where they were sent to support President Laurent Kabila against a rebellion.

Doctors pointed to the cost of that intervention -- about three million US dollars a month -- as outrageous in the face of collapsing health services.

Masuka said junior doctors receive gross salaries of 15,000 Zimbabwe dollars (about 400 US dollars) a month.

After deductions for tax, rent and pensions they take home just 6,000 Zimbabwe dollars (about 160 US dollars), he said.

Health Minister Timothy Stamps has said he sympathises with the junior doctors.

"We exploit them. We have been taking advantage of them for too long. You cannot get people to work as slaves," he said, indicating that his efforts to win a bigger budget for health services and better pay for staff had failed.

The action by the doctors is the latest in a series of strikes by workers demanding pay increases to match inflation, which is running at a record rate of 68.8 percent.

990923
AF990966

Copyright © AFP or Agence France-Presse, 1999 - AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. AFP news material may not be stored in whole or in part in a computer except for personal and non-commercial use. AFP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions in any AFP news material or in transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages whatsoever. As a newswire service AFP does not obtain releases from subjects, individuals, groups or entities contained in its photographs, graphics or quoted in its texts. Further, that no clearance is obtained from the owners of any trademarks or copyrighted materials whose marks and materials are included in AFP photos or materials. Therefore you will be solely responsible for obtaining any and all necessary releases from whatever individuals and/or entities necessary for any uses of AFP stories, photos or graphics.  http://www.afp.com/