More Than 100 Striking Doctors Spent Tuesday Cleaning Up Miramar Beach in Maputo
More than 100 doctors affiliated to the Mozambican Medical Association (AMM) spent the whole of Tuesday cleaning up the Miramar beach in Maputo on the second day of a national strike called by the AMM to demand a pay rise, APA can report.
They collected plastic bottles, pieces of glass, and other items of rubbish scattered over the beach, the rubbish left by New Year revelers. A couple of hours later, the beach had a different, more pleasant look.
AMM spokesperson Paulo Samo Gudo told APA that the AMM regards keeping the beaches clean as an important aspect of community health.
Curative medicine is not, and should not be, the main focus of public health policy, he said.
“With preventive medicine, we argue that if people do not fall ill in the first place, then there would be less need for them to go to health units”, Gudo added.
Asked about the appeal made on Monday by the clinical director of Maputo Central Hospital, Domingos Diogo, for striking doctors to return to work, Gudo responded that they are in pursuit of goals that they regard as “just and legitimate”.
Samo Gudo claimed that “more than 90 percent” of the Mozambican doctors in the national health service had joined the strike, which is intended to put some pressure on the government into giving the doctors a substantial wage rise.
On Monday, AMM chairperson Jorge Arroz had put support for the strike at 80 percent – but the Health Ministry claims that only a minority of doctors have joined the strike.
The strike has been declared for an indefinite period, and there is no sign of renewed negotiations between the ministry and the AMM.
Strikers are being marked as absent without justification at their health units and are liable to have their wages docked for every day they are on strike.
They are demanding a wage increase housing and other privileges such as those given to foreign doctors.
Source African Press Agency
African News from NetNewsPublisher.com
Category: Africa
