Strikers threaten to cut off minimum services

Maputo, 14 May (AIM) – Leaders of the Mozambican Association of United Health Professionals (APSUSM) have threatened to suspend even minimum health services throughout the country.

APSUSM claim that its members began a nationwide strike on 29 April, but journalists who have visited health units report that most services are continuing as normal.

Lopes Remane, the APSUSM coordinator in the northern city of Nampula, claimed at a Monday press conference that APSUSM members who join the strike are being harassed and threatened. APSUSM’s response to the alleged threats, he said, is to cut off even minimum health services.

“As we had previously mentioned”, said Remane, cited by the independent television station, STV, “if attempts to disturb the right to strike continued, we would take a drastic attitude. Hence we are suspending minimum services throughout the country, and the strike is continuing”.

But an STV crew visited health centres in Nampula, in search of the APSUSM strike, and could find nothing. There was no sign of a strike, and all services were functioning. There were long queues for treatment, but that is normal.

Remane admitted that many health workers are disregarding instructions from APSUSM. He claimed this was due to the threats to cut strikers’ wages, and because of their “love and empathy for the patients”.

“We have colleagues who go to the health units because they know that the people are suffering, and are unable to go to a private clinic”, he said.

Remane claimed that, because of the strike, 701 patients had died during the second week of the strike, compared with 327 in the first week. These figures are utterly fantastic. The idea that a strike which has so far lasted for a fortnight could result in hundreds of extra deaths in the hospitals is clearly absurd – particularly as health workers in some of the country’s largest hospitals (such as the Beira and Nampula general hospitals) have not joined the strike.

Last week, Health Minister Armindo Tiago declared that all of APSUSM’s claims about deaths and the situation in the hospitals “are false”.

Remane seemed shocked that the health units are threatening to suspend the wages of any health workers who join the strike. He was thus unaware that, throughout the world, workers who go on strike do not receive wages from their employers for the days when they are absent.

(AIM)

Pf/ (400)