Mozambique: Doctors back out on strike as of Monday

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Mozambique: Doctors back out on strike as of Monday

6:21 CAT | 07 Jul 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

The Medical Association of Mozambique (AMM) announced a new national strike of 21 days, starting Monday, contesting salary cuts with the application of the new table in the civil service and lack of overtime pay.

“This is, again, a national strike, where only the minimum services will be provided, and that will start at 07:00 on Monday,” AMM president Milton Tatie explained to Lusa.

The association justified the decision to return to strike action, after the suspension of another called in December, with the absence of results in the understandings reached with the government in negotiations held at the end of last year.

“The government promised to resolve the issue of salary cuts and the lack of overtime payments from February, but so far, there have been no results. On Saturday, we had a meeting with a new government team, different to the team that was negotiating with the doctors in December, and which has now informed us that it will not implement what we previously agreed,” explained Milton Tatie.

Lusa contacted Mozambique’s health ministry, which promised to make statements on the matter soon.

The Mozambican medical profession announced its discontent in November last year, when they postponed a first strike after meetings with the economy and health ministers to “give the government time” to “implement the agreed principles.

The AMM points to the “constant change of interlocutors by the government” and the lack of transparency about “how doctors’ salaries are being processed or not” as some of the points that have determined the failure of negotiations up to this point.

The implementation of the new salary scale in the civil service is being strongly contested by several professional classes, especially doctors, judges and teachers.

As well as doctors, the Association of United and Supportive Health Professionals of Mozambique also went on strike last month to contest the application of the new salary table and gave the government 60 days to resolve at least part of the professionals’ claims.

Source: Lusa