Mozambique: Doctors announce 21-day strike from Monday, 29th July

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Mozambique: Doctors announce 21-day strike from Monday, 29th July

8:37 CAT | 22 Jul 2024

File photo: Lusa

The Medical Association of Mozambique (AMM) today announced the return to strike on 29 July, describing the situation in the National Health Service as “chaotic” and accusing the Government of a lack of interest in resolving concerns from class.

“The medical profession will once again paralyze its activities from Monday, July 29th, throughout the national territory”, announced the president of the AMM, Napoleão Viola, at a press conference in Maputo, adding that the strike will have a duration of 21 days, extendable if there is no agreement with the Government.

The list of demands includes improving the framework within the scope of the Single Salary Table (TSU), salary cuts for the class, the lack of payment for overtime “for more than a year” and better working conditions.

“Our health units continue to lack the basics. We continue to operate without medicines, without enough food for patients and without means of diagnosis so that we can reach the pathologies that affect patients”, said Viola.

The president of the AMM said that only six of the 23 points in the list of demands have been resolved since negotiations with the Government began in August last year, adding that there has been no dialogue for at least five months.

“What we see is the continued degradation of our National Health Service. Everyone has seen the plaster situation [lack of material for interventions] reported at the Nampula Central Hospital, but that occurs throughout the country, including at the Maputo Central Hospital” , Viola highlighted.

“It is a situation [the strike] that we would not like to have reached, but unfortunately there is no dialogue to find solutions (…) This is a strike to show the Government that we are dissatisfied”, insisted the president of the doctors’ association , repeating that there is a lack of “concrete answers” to the class’s demands.

Viola stated that doctors will not give up on their complaints and asked for the population’s support to “put pressure” on the Government, arguing that “doctors are exhausted” in a National Health Service where “basic resources are lacking”.

“It is chaos, this is the concrete word to describe it, as we are not sure if what we are doing will bring solutions to the patient in front of us”, he concluded, thus justifying the return from doctors to strikes, just like a year ago.

Source: Lusa