The Mozambican head of state asked: “Go back to the hospital, go back to the emergency room, to the laboratory, get behind the wheel of the ambulance and treat our compatriots.”
Felipe Nyusi was speaking today on the sidelines of the launch of the National Culture Festival in Matola, on the outskirts of Maputo.
Mozambique’s national health system is facing a crisis triggered by staff strikes, initially called by the Medical Association of Mozambique (AMM), protesting salary cuts and non-payment of overtime, and later by the Association of Allied Health Professionals and Mozambique Solidarity. (APSUSM), which requires better working conditions for other professionals as well.
The Mozambican president asked for the continuation of the dialogue with the aim of “quickly finding common and possible solutions to the country’s reality” and without harming either party.
“We would like to hear tomorrow that our brothers work with us,” Nyusi emphasized, acknowledging that in addition to their own problems, the demands of professionals are “to solve the problems of societies, when they talk about working conditions.” .
Nyusi emphasized that patients are “suffering” and need health services, saying he has “faith and hope” that his message has reached health workers.
Mozambican doctors on Sunday agreed to a new 21-day strike period, the third in a row since July 10, appealing directly to President Filipe Nyusi to end the current crisis that is crippling hospitals.
“We have decided to extend the strike for another 21 days, the way we did previously, of course, with minimal services so that our population does not suffer any more,” said AMM Chairman Milton. Tatia at the closing of the General Assembly in Maputo.
Also on Sunday, Mozambique’s health workers – about 65,000 servants, technicians and nurses – began a general strike for 21 days, while maintaining minimal services in maternity wards, nurseries and emergency cases.
And they demand that the government meet the demands of the sector, including those of the medical class, as announced on Saturday by the head of the APSUSM, nurse Anselmo Mochavi.
Among the demands on the government are to “provide medicines” to hospitals, which patients have to buy, to buy hospital beds, to solve the problem of “lack of food and adequate food” in health units, and to equip ambulances with emergency equipment to support life quickly. or non-disposable personal protective equipment, of which “lack of supplies forces staff to buy out of pocket”.
LN(EAC/PVJ) // VM
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