Medical strike deepens in Sudan’s El Gezira

Yesterday 700 interns refused to return to the hospitals of Sudan’s El Gezira state in solidarity with the medical specialists and specialists’ assistants who joined the strike last week. The state has seen strikes by medical staff over payment delays since January.

The committee of the specialist doctors in the state confirmed the continued strike of assistants and their refusal to return to El Gezira state, despite a circular by the director-general of the Ministry of Health State, in response to the disregard of their demands.

The doctors announced that the decision to leave the state and return to the Central Training Office at the Federal Ministry of Health will continue until the conditions of the interns in the state improve or their distribution to new hospitals with qualified training and supervision officials according to the right standards.

The doctors' committee conditioned that return to the service requires abolishing decision No. 8 issued by the Director- General of the Ministry of Health of the state suspending the financial dues of the deputy specialists.

In a memorandum to the El Gezira state Minister of Health, specialists of the Wad Madani Hospital announced a strike in support of their assistants who stopped working earlier last week because of delays in the payment of their dues.

The specialists expressed “their full solidarity with the medical assistants”. They confirmed “their active role in providing medical services and the fairness of their demands”.

The specialists said that they would only deal with emergency cases until a solution has been found for the delayed payments of the assistants’ allowances.