South African police fire rubber bullets at strikers

Doctors took over cleaning duties and army nurses delivered babies at public hospitals in South Africa yesterday, the second day of a strike by unions representing 1.3 million civil servants.

Several confrontations erupted between police and public employees, who began an open-ended strike on Wednesday to demand higher wages.

In Johannesburg, police fired water cannons and rubber bullets yesterday to block some 150 striking workers from entering the 3,000-bed Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, which serves the sprawling township of Soweto.

Local media said the scene was repeated at a second hospital across the city.

Police also fired rubber bullets at striking teachers who tried to cross a barricade near a Johannesburg highway.

In Durban, health officials called in the military to help provide care as nurses joined the strike.

Health workers, like police and immigration agents, are considered essential services and are not allowed to strike. But a spokesman at Durban’s 922-bed King Edward VIII Hospital said all staff but doctors had joined the stay-away.

Doctors were feeding patients, wheeling them to their beds and even cleaning the hospital, spokesman Nonto Beko said.

“We basically do not have anyone in the hospital except the doctors and the nurses from the army. People are all out striking,” Ms Beko said.

“We are in the process of getting private cleaners to clean the hospital because the doctors have been basically doing everything.”

The province’s top health official, Sibongiseni Dhlomo, criticised health workers’ decision to strike.