Medical professions union declares open strike in February

The Union of Medical Professions announced an open strike to begin in February following an emergency general meeting held on Thursday, attended by 350 members.

The union — made up of the Doctors, Dentists, Pharmacists and Vets Syndicates — also announced a partial strike on January 19 and 20 in all government hospitals and health care units.

The main goals of the strike are to “insist on the draft law presented to the Shura Council and refuse the bonuses offered by the Ministry of Health,” according to a brief statement published on the Doctors Syndicate’s website.

Amr al-Shora, a leading board member of the Doctors Syndicate, told Mada Masr that the decision was made because “the solutions proposed by the government are not solutions at all, and just make the problem worse.”

The Pharmacists Syndicate joined in the strike for the first time on January 1, and the Vets Syndicate for the first time on January 8.

The fourth syndicate in the union, the Dentists Syndicate, is not formerly part of the strike. The decision is not binding on the syndicate.

The veterinarians’ participation had a great effect as their work in the import and export of livestock and overseeing slaughterhouses impacts on the economy, Shora told Mada Masr. Vets can also carry out a complete strike, refusing all duties, which doctors and pharmacists cannot do because they are obliged by professional ethics to deal with all emergency and critical cases, he added.

“There is no way we could leave someone to die because we are striking,” Shora asserted.

The strike committee of the Doctors Syndicate had announced at a press conference on December 31, the day before the partial strike was launched, that there would be no effect on operations in emergency rooms, urgent surgeries, incubators or other pressing medical needs.

Those participating in strikes on January 8 were subjected to higher pressure than usual, Shora said, in part because it was the same day former President Morsi’s trial was set to take place, which was ultimately delayed when Morsi could not be brought to the court due to bad weather.

The date was simply a coincidence, and the strike’s demands have nothing to do with politics but rather with the medical profession, Shora said.

Nonetheless, officials from the Health Ministry have accused striking doctors of causing chaos and of working in cahoots with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The medical professionals’ demands include raising the national health budget from its current level at just below 4.5 percent up to around 15 percent of the national budget, raising doctors’ salaries, which currently average only a few hundred pounds per month, and ensuring the security of hospitals from assaults and from infectious diseases.

With the midterm elections on December 13, the internal politics of the Doctors Syndicate has shifted. The elections unseated the Muslim Brotherhood’s bloc which had held sway over the syndicate for nearly two decades, and the Independence Current — made up of liberal, centrist and left-leaning physicians — now dominates the syndicate on a national level.