Mozambique: PM leads working group to negotiate with striking doctors, health workers

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Mozambique: PM leads working group to negotiate with striking doctors, health workers

12:42 CAT | 23 Aug 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Saint-Louis Studio / Steven Le Vourc'h]

Mozambique’s government announced on Tuesday that it had created a new working group headed by the prime minister, Adriano Maleiane, for negotiations with the striking health workers.

“In the context of the openness to dialogue that we have been referring to, notwithstanding the meetings that have been held continuously (…), the government has set up a new working group headed by the prime minister to continue delving into the issues that are still pending in this process,” declared Inocêncio Impissa, who is deputy minister of State Administration and Civil Service and was acting as the government spokesman, after a cabinet meeting in Maputo.

READ: Mozambique: MDM demands dismissal of the ‘Father of the TSU’ – Carta

The Mozambican National Health System is facing a crisis caused by staff strikes, called first by the Medical Association of Mozambique (AMM) against salary cuts and lack of overtime pay and then by the Association of United and Solidarity Health Professionals of Mozambique (APSUSM), which is demanding better working conditions for other professionals as well.

The government considers that the lines of negotiation with the health professionals prevail, noting that the new team has the mission of “better understanding the demands of the professionals”.

“The open corridor remains the same. We’ve just moved up a level to try to understand a little more,” observed Inocêncio Impissa, admitting that the absence of professionals from health units is having a negative impact.

“The government’s role is, of course, to find, within the legal framework and reasonableness, solutions to curb the effects that are being created or caused by this strike,” emphasised the spokesman, adding that the Ministry of Health will soon issue a statement with more details about the crisis in the health system.

Asked about the reports of threats that the AMM board is complaining about, the government spokesman suggested that the victims file a complaint with the authorities.

“We encourage the president of the association and the group of colleagues who have been victims of these threats to submit more information to the Public Prosecutor’s Office (PGR),” he said.

READ: Mozambique: Doctors approve 21 more days of strike, ask for President’s intervention – Watch

On Sunday, Mozambican doctors approved a new 21-day strike period, the third in a row since 10 July, appealing directly to President Filipe Nyusi to end the current “crisis” that is paralysing hospitals.

“We have decided to extend the strike for another 21 days, in the same way as before, of course, with the provision of minimum services so that our population doesn’t suffer any more,” announced the president of the AMM, Milton Tatia, at the end of the general assembly in Maputo.

Also on Sunday, Mozambican health workers – around 65,000 servants, technicians and nurses – began a 21-day general strike, maintaining only minimum services in maternity wards, nurseries and emergency rooms.

They are demanding that the government “fulfil” the demands of the sector, including those of the medical profession, as announced on Saturday by the president of APSUSM, nurse Anselmo Muchave.

Among the demands put to the government are “providing medicines” to hospitals, which have to be bought by patients, acquiring hospital beds, resolving the “lack of food and adequate nutrition” in health units, equipping ambulances with emergency materials for rapid life support or non-disposable personal protective equipment, the lack of supply of which is “forcing staff to buy out of their own pockets”.

Source: Lusa