Uniformed South African soldiers helped doctors tend to patients in the country's biggest hospital on Friday as the government vowed to assert control over a crippling week-old civil servant strike.
"The fact that there is some dissatisfaction here and there cannot mean that the country must grind to a standstill," Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said at Kafalong Hospital in Pretoria, where troops with bullet-proof vests and automatic rifles took up positions outside the gates.
The SAPA news agency said more than 2,500 soldiers were sent to various "flashpoints" around the country where striking civil servants have all but paralysed key social services since walking off the job on June 1.
The powerful COSATU labour federation, which includes a number of civil service unions, on Thursday said it was urging all of its more than one million members to prepare for a general sympathy strike next Wednesday to push labour's demands.
The government has offered a 6.5 percent pay hike, but public sector unions have held fast to a demand for 12 percent, underscoring the ideological battle facing the African National Congress as it prepares to elect a new leader in December. The unions - traditional allies of the ANC during the long fight against apartheid - are now increasingly vocal critics of President Thabo Mbeki's government, charging that its business friendly policies have left millions behind. In coastal KwaZulu-Natal province, many ambulance drivers stopped responding to calls because they were afraid for their safety and hospitals were not accepting patients anyway.