Indian doctors working in Mozambique legally – Government contradicts Order of Doctors’ claims

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Indian doctors working in Mozambique legally – Government contradicts Order of Doctors’ claims

8:22 CAT | 15 Sep 2016

The Mozambican Health Ministry has denied claims by the Order of Doctors that a group of Indian doctors are working illegally in Maputo and Nampula central hospitals.

Interviewed by the independent television station STV, Antonio Zacarias, the chairperson of the Order, which is a professional body set up to represent the interests of Mozambican doctors, protested that that Indians “are committing a crime” because “enrolment in and recognition by the order are obligatory conditions for practicing medicine in Mozambique”.

“These doctors are not enrolled and we were not informed”, he claimed. “So we cannot guarantee that the medical work they do is of quality or not”.

However, the director of Maputo Central Hospital, Joao Fumane, speaking on behalf of the Health Ministry, told STV that the Indians are in the country legally, and the Order knows about them because the same group has been in Mozambique before. He admitted that the Order might not have been informed of their return.

Fumane could show STV documents which proved that the Indian presence in Mozambican hospitals is perfectly legal. They are on a humanitarian mission he said, and the work they do is entirely free of charge. It does not cost the Ministry, the hospitals or the patients anything at all.

The Indians are working in orthopaedics, gastroenterology and care of cancer patients, and are training Mozambican staff in these areas. The doctors were sent by the Apollo organisation, which runs a hospital chain in India and Bangladesh.

Trying to prevent the Indians from working would only prejudice their patients. The appearance of qualified doctors who are working free of charge, even if only for a few days (their mission ends next Thursday), can only be a benefit for a country of 26 million people where there are only 2,561 doctors.

This is not the first time the Order has claimed that doctors are working “illegally”. Supposedly 301 (or 12 per cent) of the country’s 2,561 doctors are working illegally in the health service.

Source: AIM