South Darfur’s striking doctors demand Health Ministry to respond

The doctors of Nyala Teaching Hospital have asked the Ministry of Health to respond to their demands of more protection and an improved working environment, so they can lift up their strike. The doctors’ demands are represented in the trial of border guards, who beat a doctor on duty on Sunday, and the trial of the group which stormed the doctors’ residence and beat them up on Wednesday. A doctor explained on Wednesday that he and his colleagues had decided to go on strike since last Sunday because of the “extremely bad” working environment at the hospital. “We cannot continue working in this entirely overcrowded hospital”, he said. They demand more protection of the doctors in the hospital and a drastic improvement of the working environment.A source has confirmed to Radio Dabanga that all the doctors of the hospital have stopped working in the emergency department.On the other hand, a number of patients escorts revealed to Radio Dabanga that tens of patients who came to the emergency department have been affected by the strike. As they could not found any doctors, many patients sought treatment outside the hospital. It is worth mentioning that the phenomenon of attacks by pro-government militiamen on Nyala hospital’s doctors on duty, has been repeated, and escalated without ending. This prompted the strike of some doctors and many others’ submitting resignation in South Darfur. File photo: An internally displaced mother holds her boy in the general pediatric ward at the Nyala hospital in South Darfur (Nic Bothma / Corbis) Related: Striking doctors attacked at South Darfur hospital (29 January 2014)