Government urges strikers to return to work

Maputo, 1 May (AIM) – The Mozambican government on Tuesday urged striking health workers to return to their posts, in order to avoid any possible loss of life.

Speaking to reporters after the weekly meeting in Maputo of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), the government spokesperson, Deputy Justice Minister Filimao Suaze, said the strike, called by the Association of United Health Professionals of Mozambique (APSUSM), had taken the government by surprise, because it believed that the dialogue between the Health Ministry and APSUSM had been progressing “in a cordial spirit”.

He said that measures are under way to mitigate any damaging impact that the absence of health workers from the hospitals might have.

APSUSM claims that 50,000 health workers have been on strike since Monday. But when journalists visited some of the country’s largest hospitals, they found no sign of any strike at all.

Reporters from the independent television station STV found that in the Nampula Central Hospital, the largest hospital in northern Mozambique, work was progressing normally. On Tuesday, not a single health worker in the Nampula hospital had joined the strike. All the hospital departments were functioning.

STV found the same situation in Beira Central Hospital, the largest health unit in the central provinces. Staff were at work, attending to patients, and there was no sign of any strike.

In the south of the country, some health centres were affected by the strike, and not enough of their staff had turned up to attend to the long queues of patients.

But in the Jose Macamo General Hospital, one of the largest hospitals in Maputo city, all the services were functioning, and it seemed that all the health professionals had turned up for work.

In the Maputo provincial hospital, in the southern city of Matola, some of the workers heeded the strike call, but not enough to paralyse the services.

The provincial health directorate warned that those who did not show up for work will be marked absent – which means they will not be paid for the days they are on strike.

(AIM)

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