Maputo, 23 Jul (AIM) – The Mozambican Medical Association (AMM), which claims to represent the country’s doctors, has threatened to resume a national strike as from next Monday.
The strike, the AMM says, will last for 21 days, but can be extended if there is no advance in negotiations with the government. The AMM calls this “the third phase of the third national strike”.
The strike will not be a complete shutdown of the national health service. The AMM promises to keep “minimum services” functioning, in order to care for seriously ill patients.
A statement issued by the AMM on Monday accused the government of complying with only 25 per cent of the points agreed in last year’s negotiations. It said there has been no advance in the talks since February, and claimed that, in effect, the government has unilaterally paralysed them.
“Unfortunately our health units and our patients still have no access to basic medicines”, claimed the AMM. Missing from the health units were personal protection equipment, laboratory resources, thread for stitches, and other basic means for treating patients.
“Even basic food for our patients is lacking in the health units”, the AMM accused.
The list of demands submitted to the Health Ministry by the AMM in late 2022 contained 23 points. The AMM says the government replied to six of them, leaving 17 to be solved.
The six questions solved are all minor, and for the AMM the most important was the payment of “small scale allowances”.
Of the outstanding points, the most important, the Association says, are improvements in working conditions, a better salary framework, and payment for overtime. Just like the country’s teachers, health workers say they have worked many hours of overtime for which they have never been paid.
In August 2023, when the AMM suspended its strike, the government promised to set up a joint negotiating commission, but no such commission has ever met.
The Health Ministry has not yet responded to the AMM’s threat of a renewed strike.
(AIM)
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