Mozambique: Doctors’ complaints are legitimate – Chairman of the Order of Physicians

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Doctors’ complaints are legitimate – Chairman of the Order of Physicians

1:46 CAT | 13 Dec 2022

Photo: O País

Chairman of the Order of Physicians Gilberto Manhiça has accused the government of denigrating the image of professionals who were once considered heroes and of wanting to put the doctor in a precarious situation vis-à-vis health service users.

Speaking at a press conference in Maputo on Friday, Gilberto Manhiça began by recalling that doctors have always given everything, even in difficult times in the country, such as in the case of the civil war and the Covid-19 pandemic, during which they worked in dangerous conditions, risking their own lives and those of their families to care for patients.

Manhiça said the government was not taking the doctors’ concerns and the commitments assumed during the negotiations on the Single Salary Table (TSU) seriously.

Manhiça says that the doctors’ complaints are legitimate, and have been out in the open for over ten years, and the Single Salary Table has only highlighted problems that the government seemed intent on ignoring.

“With regard to the Single Salary Table, the government intends to reduce the risk subsidy from 30% to 5%, costing a general practitioner about 2,300 meticais. That is, it is understood that a doctor must risk his life, and the lives of his family members, for 2,300 meticais,” the president complained.

Further defending his colleagues, Manhiça said that, for the government, commitments seem to have no validity, since, during one of the meetings, it was agreed that 20% would be paid to specialists in the form of a research subsidy, but the percentage was unilaterally reduced to 5%.

Doctors say the strike is justified by the need to be as valued by the government as foreign doctors seem to be, as they represent an important pillar in the country’s national health system.

“We appeal to the government to stop denigrating the image of doctors, who carry out their functions in the national health system with excellence and selfless dedication, ensuring the health of the people in many different ways,” Manhica said.

Manhiça said there was a constitutional right to strike, and doctors, by protesting, were only seeking to improve their working conditions.

Source: O País