Mozambique | TSU: Doctors suspend strike indefinitely

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Mozambique | TSU: Doctors suspend strike indefinitely

4:26 CAT | 23 Jan 2023

Image: O País

The Medical Association of Mozambique has decided to suspend its strike indefinitely, saying it hopes the move will create a calm environment for dialogue with the government. However, if an understanding is not reached, the doctors warn that they will resume their action.

On the 4th of December of last year, Mozambique’s doctors decided to suspend their activities countrywide to secure better wages within the scope of the implementation of the Single Salary Table (TSU).

Eighteen days after the beginning of the strike, the doctors decided to suspend their industrial action for a period of 30 days.

At the time, the president of the Medical Association of Mozambique, Milton Tatia, invoked the national interest and the fulfilment of the professional oath for the resumption of activities.

“We are temporarily suspending the strike, and our patients can return to the health units,” he explained at the time. “The announced decision comes in response to the festive season, which can contribute to the increase in the number of patients looking for health care, as it is a period in which more traffic accidents, physical aggressions and diseases occur.”

With three days to go before the end of the grace period, the Medical Association of Mozambique decided to maintain the suspension of the strike indefinitely.

“It is the decision of the medical association that we will not continue with the strike, at least temporarily. We will remain at the negotiating table, in order to continue to seek solutions and, depending on what is decided, we will, if desirable, cancel the strike definitively,” he said.

Napoleão Viola says that the reduction in wages, approved by the executive will exacerbate the precariousness of remuneration for the medical profession.

“A reduction in wages is a decision that nobody likes. For the moment, we do not see a substantial part of the medical profession’s statutes reflected in the decisions of public bodies. We are sensing, on a daily basis, a high degree of dissatisfaction in the medical profession,” Viola said.

The Mozambican Medical Association says that progress has already been made in the negotiations and hopes that consensus that values the profession will soon be reached.

Source: O País