The Prime Minister, Adriano Maleiane, dismissed this Friday, 25 August, the need for mediators in the negotiations between the government and the striking doctors, saying that the situation is not yet in crisis.
“When you need mediators, it’s because the situation is difficult, but we haven’t reached that stage,” he said, quoted by Lusa news agency.
The prime minister’s statement comes after the president of the Mozambican Bar Association (OAM), among other Mozambican personalities, offered this month to mediate in the conflict between the government and the doctors, who had been on strike since 10 July, which was interrupted on Thursday to make room for talks.
According to the head of government, “the mediators are dispensable because we are not in a crisis and the dialogue has not been exhausted either, but we are now working and assessing what has not yet been agreed and the reasons behind it. That’s the prime minister’s role: to listen to people and then resolve the issues that are still outstanding.”
The National Health System is facing a crisis caused by staff strikes, called first by the Medical Association of Mozambique (AMM), against pay cuts and lack of overtime pay, and then by the Association of United and Solidarity Health Professionals of Mozambique (APSUSM), which is demanding better working conditions for other professionals as well.
In the meantime, the doctors’ strike has been suspended until 2 October, with the aim of making room for a frank, open and productive dialogue with the commission set up by the government, under the leadership of the prime minister.
Meanwhile, Mozambican health professionals – around 65,000 servants, technicians and nurses – began a 21-day general strike on Sunday, maintaining only minimum services in maternity wards, nurseries and emergency rooms. They are demanding that the government fulfil the demands of the sector, including those of the medical profession, as announced by the president of APSUSM, Anselmo Muchave.
Among the demands put to the government are “providing hospitals with medicines, which have to be bought by patients, acquiring hospital beds, resolving the lack of food and adequate nutrition in health units, equipping ambulances with emergency materials for rapid life support or non-disposable personal protective equipment, the lack of which is forcing staff to buy out of their own pockets”.