MHEN calls for amicable action to avert nurses, physicians’ strike

Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN) has called upon the Ministry of Health and disgruntled healthcare workers to consider taking amicable action to resolve their differences before 10^th June in the interest of patients.

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The network, which is also the chair for the Universal Health Coverage (UHC), fears that the planned industrial action will affect the most underprivileged poor Malawians whose access to essential health services will be denied, stressing that poor Malawians cannot afford alternative means at private health facilities.

MHEN Executive Director George Jobe and his Board Chairperson, Carolyn Kassam, have made the plea in a statement issued on Thursday in reaction to the planned nationwide strike by National Organization of Nurses and Midwives in Malawi (NONM) and the Physician Assistants Union of Malawi (PAUM).

Jobe and Kassam requested that should the industrial action go ahead, managers of the public facilities to have cautious plans that safeguard and ensure the right to Life for everyone, in particular the vulnerable patients whose lives are most at risk with the action and cannot afford to access care elsewhere.

“Nurse leaders and those in management should not participate in the sit-in action but attend to patients. NONM and PAUM should consider making sure that the critical areas like labour ward, theatre and intensive care wards are covered adequately to avoid the losses of lives,” reads the statement in part.

MHEN is an independent, non-profit making alliance of over ninety Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the health sector interested in promoting equitable access to quality, affordable and responsive health care services in Malawi. It achieves this through influencing policy formulation, review, and practice.