Mass resignation of medics in West Darfur

General practitioners and medical specialists in West Darfur submitted their mass resignation on Sunday, in protest against inadequate allowances and poor working conditions. “Today the medical doctors handed the Director-General of the West Darfur State Ministry of Health a memorandum, demanding permission to leave,” surgeon Abdel Latif Abdel Rahman Ahmed in El Geneina told Radio Dabanga. “We delivered a memo to the West Darfur Ministry of Health 25 days ago, in which we demanded a monthly allowances increase from SDG2,000 ($350) to SDG5,000 ($875), as well as housing, training, and the provision of air tickets for the specialists, the doctors, and their families. The ministry, however, did not respond to our demands. We continued to do our work, while we have not received our allowances for three months.” Asked by Radio Dabanga about the problem, the West Darfur State’s Minister of Health, Osama Adam Abakar, said that an agreement already had been reached with the State’s Ministry of Finance to resolve the problem. “We have put a long-term strategy in place to entirely solve the problems of health care in West Darfur.”“The Finance Ministry has agreed to regularly disburse the allowances of the medical specialists and doctors effective 1 April. The allowances for the month of March will be paid this month, as well as part of the arrears.” File photo: A doctor examining a child in El Sareif hospital, North Darfur (Albert Gonzalez Farran) Related: North Darfur hospital doctors on strike over non-payment (17 February 2014)