"We are still on strike, the problem is that we just get promises which fall short of our expectations, but negotiations are still taking place between ourselves and the Health Services Board," said Brighton Chizhande, president of the Hospital Doctors' Association.

The doctors began their strike this week demanding higher salaries and the restoration of allowances which had been withdrawn last month by the government and other aid agencies.

The Health Service Board has now said that allowances for items such as accommodation, uniforms and night duty had not been included in their monthly salaries in error and would now be restored.

"It was a mistake that those allowances were withdrawn. Treasury has admitted that it was oversight on their part," the board's chairman Lovemore Mbengeranwa told AFP.

"As a board, we believe that salaries should attract and retain skills. However the issue is whether the economy afford it."

Agostino Zacharias, a spokesman for the United Nations Development Programme which administers donor funding for Zimbabwe's health service, said the agency was "doing everything possible" to ensure the funds are disbursed.

"There is some paperwork which needs to be completed but within a period of two weeks we should have completed and the funds will be available," he told AFP.

Chizhande said the union and the board were still negotiating on the issue of salaries.

Zimbabwe's health service has been in crisis for some time, with doctors and nurses frequently striking for better pay when the economy was beset by hyperinflation before the installation of a national unity government in February.

It has also had to cope with a cholera epidemic which was recently brought under control.

AFP

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