More than 3,000 Angolan doctors out of the country’s 5,200 have been on strike since December 6, 2021.
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The National Union of Angolan Doctors (SINMEA) started a strike movement on December 6, 2021 for salary increases and better working conditions. Only seriously ill patients continue to be treated in the emergency services, where only 50% of staff are present, the union said. The strike is also an act of solidarity with SINMEA President Adriano Manuel, suspended 13 months for reporting child deaths at Luanda Pediatric Hospital, and alerting to the state of health services in his country.
“We need to be respected more as doctors than we are, as healthcare professionals who spend so many hours in favor of the well-being of our patients”, lamented Doctor Emelcina Gaspar from the Provincial Materno-Infantil Hospital.
“What we want is first to improve our working conditions and then our wages because it is really hard, our working conditions are difficult.”
Doctor Virgilio Coimbra NetoPortal of Angola
Angolan doctors are calling for a “improved wages and increased compensation” paid to the profession, in particular for on-call duty and on-call duty. Subject to a very heavy workload since the start of the pandemic, they are above all asking for better working conditions and more staff. Negotiations have been underway for two weeks, without result to date.
The government of Joao Lourenço had however very early asked for help from Cuba and China to fight against Covid-19. 250 Cuban doctors had landed in Luanda in April 2020 to lend them a hand. The WHO had also welcomed at the time “voluntary action” of the Angolan government against the pandemic rather well managed since the country officially has 65,500 cases of coronavirus and more than 1 700 deaths.
3.3 million Angolans, or nearly 10% of the population, were fully vaccinated at the beginning of December 2021, mainly with AstraZeneca that the country obtained from India as part of the Covax initiative . Angola has also received in recent days 100 000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine, the effectiveness of which remains controversial.