Striking health workers in Mozambique announce minimum service

Mozambican health workers announced this Sunday that they will provide minimal services in maternity hospitals, kindergartens and emergency rooms during a 21-day general strike that began this Sunday, acknowledging “success” in negotiations with the government.

“We will provide minimal services because we are making some progress. These successes give us some hope,” the president of the United and Solidarity Association of Medical Workers of Mozambique (APSUSM) told a press conference in Maputo this morning. , Nurse Anselmo Muhav.

We are talking about a strike organized by this association, which includes about 65,000 technicians, servants and nurses, which began at 07:00 (06:00 in Lisbon), but now the professionals ensure that they guarantee a minimum amount of services after negotiations on Saturday . with the government.

Anselmo Mujave added that during these negotiations, which are ongoing, joint visits were established to state drug warehouses to assess their condition, as well as to some hospitals that are in “critical condition”, as the association condemns, in addition to “openness in the desire to implement” scope of these professionals.

“The minimum services we are going to provide are maternity hospitals, nurseries and emergency services,” the president of the association told reporters.

“If we continue with this iron fist, unwilling to give up, there will be a moment of aggravation and we can aggravate even more. But we also hope from the side of the government that there will be an opening of space. The interest of the people. People are afraid to go to health centers because nurses and technicians treat them badly. Why do they treat them badly? Because they are not well received,” he justified himself, guaranteeing the continuation of the strike.

This Sunday, Mozambique’s medical workers launched a 21-day general strike demanding that the government “meet” the sector’s demands, including those of the medical profession, which has been on strike since July 10, the sector’s association announced on Saturday.

On June 1, these professionals had already demonstrated, culminating in the first nationwide strike to “denounce the state of slavery” to which they are “subjected in the exercise of their services”, suspended by “bilateral consensus”. after a round of negotiations held three days later, “with the rationale of giving the government the opportunity to implement the agreements reached within 15 days”, which Anselmo Mujave assured at a press conference held on Saturday, did not happen.

“Of all the concerns presented by APSUSM, none of them were satisfied with tangible results, since there was only a report from the government of oral negotiations with persons that could not be proven, and that such negotiations actually took place. The government has 4.5 billion metics (64.6 million euros) for the upcoming October elections and has also purchased 45 luxury cars worth 120 million metics. [1,7 milhão de euros]. However, he does not have the money to buy a simple hospital bed or simple paracetamol,” he said.

Among the demands placed on the government are “providing hospitals with medicines” that patients must purchase, acquiring hospital beds, addressing the “lack of food and adequate nutrition” in first-aid posts, equipping ambulances with emergency supplies for quick life support. or reusable personal protective equipment, the shortage of which “forces employees to buy them out of their own pocket.”

“The government has not made any efforts to resolve the agreements reached, the results are consistent with the agreements,” he stressed, recalling that during the June negotiations, the association confirmed that if “within 60 days requested” by the executive branch, “the agreements will not be implemented and implemented the next day after the end of the period, the strike will resume.

This shutdown of health sector professionals begins on the same day as the general meeting of the Medical Association of Mozambique, convened to decide whether to continue the third period of the 21-day strike in protest mainly against wage cuts as part of the application of the new salary table for civil servants and non-payment of overtime.

Physicians also complain that class status is being violated by the government and also defend investments in the national healthcare system.