In a move to curb Xhosa initiate deaths and mutilations the Health Department would employ experienced iincgibi (traditional surgeons) to perform circumcisions said Eastern Cape Health Department spokesperson Mahlubandile Magida yesterday.
Human Resources
UNICEF warned on Monday that child labourers in Mozambique were at a high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and said it would encourage the government to find ways to stop child labour.
A strike by government doctors and nurses crippled state hospital services in the country's main cities on Wednesday, AP reported. Quoting the Hospital Doctors Association, the agency said about 350 doctors stopped work on Tuesday in the cities of Harare, the capital, and Bulawayo, the second city, demanding better salaries and allowances.
Between October 1999 and November 2000, WHO's Department of Health Information Management and Dissemination worked with participants of the Health Information Forum to elaborate ways in which WHO and other health information organizations might work together more effectively to improve access to information for healthcare workers in developing and transitional countries. Based on a series of five structured meetings and a questionnaire survey of health information organizations, the following document from the WHO-HIF collaboration is intended as a basis for the cooperative development of needs-driven action plans in each of six priority areas. Proceedings of meetings and survey reports are available at http://www.inasp.org.uk.
The National Economic Development and Labour Council's (Nedlac) standing committee on Friday met representatives of the Congress of SA Trade Unions and the Department of Public Enterprises on Cosatu's notice of possible protest action against privatisation. Last week Cosatu notified Nedlac that it was planning mass action in protest against the privatisation of state assets.
Over three million children die from diarrhoea every year in developing countries and a third of the world's population is infected with parasitic worms. Simple improvements in hygiene could drastically cut infection rates. But what is the best way to develop hygiene promotion programmes? How can health promoters identify target populations and risk factors?
The confrontation that ensued between health workers in Livingstone and the provincial health directorate in Southern Province over the withdrawal of labour has now been resolved. The matter concerned the disciplinary letters which were handed to striking workers while the Civil Servants Union of Zambia (CSUZ) was concluding negotiations with Government.
Medical consultants and specialists at all public hospitals throughout Zimbabwe are on an indefinite strike over low salaries and poor working conditions, plunging an already ailing heath sector into deeper crisis. The senior doctors went on strike on Sunday following an ultimatum they issued to the government to address their grievances by last Saturday.
It has been discovered that the former apartheid regime colluded with the mining giant, British Cape Asbestos Property Limited to run South African mines for another decade even though it impacted negatively on the workers' health. The company, which is now known as Cape Plc, has been sued by 6 500 South Africans who have contracted asbestosis.
Citing new data showing some 23 million workers
worldwide now infected with HIV/AIDS, the Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Juan Somavia plans to formally launch a pioneering Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work at the U.N General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS in New York on 25-27 June. The ILO Code of Practice will provide workers, employers and governments with new global guidelines - based on international labour standards - for addressing HIV/AIDS and its impact at the enterprise, community and national levels where most infections occur. It will also help boost efforts to prevent the spread of HIV, manage its impact, provide care and support for those suffering from its effects and staunch stigma and discrimination which arise from it.