Doctors working in Maputo City hospitals say they are overloaded due to the strike that has been underway for 12 days. Patients are asking doctors to return to work.
The doctors’ strike continues on its twelfth day, and the provision of health care to those in need is increasingly conditioned in health facilities in Maputo City.
At the Maputo Central Hospital, for example, the emergency services benches were filled this Thursday. These are patients who have been waiting for hours to be seen.
“The hospital was fuller today and the service is very slow, but we can do nothing but wait for patients, sitting on these benches,” lamented Horpa Henriqueta.
Flávio Luís had been waiting for a medical certificate for four days after a dog bite, but without success.
“I just need a medical certificate, but they just tell me I have to sit here in this corner. I’m worried, because I don’t even know if I’ll be able to access the document,” the patient complained.
At the José Macamo General Hospital, care is also half-gas, even with the allocation of five military doctors.
The health unit has 50 doctors, including specialists and general practitioners. Of these, more than 30 have not been at their posts since the first day of the strike and work has increased.
“All the hospital’s services are suffering from the lack of doctors. Maternity is working very tight. There is one doctor per shift, so it is very difficult. In the Emergency Centre, the support of military doctors is not enough to get everyone there on time,” explained Luís Walle, adding that outpatient consultations have been practically non-existent since the start of the second phase of the third national doctors’ strike.
Patients, who even before the strike had been complaining about delays in care and now consider the situation critical, are calling on the striking doctors to return to work.
Across the country, more than 2,000 doctors have joined the third national strike.
O pa
