Showdown between Ould Abbas and striking public health doctors still unfolding

The Health Minister Djamel Ould Abbes who held talks with representatives of the different health sectors on Tuesday made verbal promises in a TV statement of salary increases up to 70 percent and revision of public health doctors' statutes.

• The agreement was reached earlier this week in Algiers at a meeting with doctors’ union SNMG, Health Minister Djamel Ould Abbès said.
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• Pharmacists and dentists will also benefit from the projected pay hike, he asserted.
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• Mr Ould Abbas stressed as a result that all striking doctors should now return to work without further delay or face legal proceedings arguing that the sick patients’ health is at risk in the various health structures of the country, as he put it.
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• However, the doctors’ unions have vowed to pursue their open-ended strike as long as they have not received an official written document from the health ministry testifying to the endorsement by the relevant authorities of all their long-standing claims.
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• During their sit-ins in the past few weeks, the protesters shouted demands to respect their professions, especially after new government rules stating that students in pharmacy and dentistry would no longer be designated “doctors” when they complete their studies.
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• The “degrading” move will affect their salary scale, they said.
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• “The most important thing is not what we’re called but our grade in the public salary scale which is currently closer to paramedics than doctors,” said a doctors’ union spokesman.
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• As for the doctors in various medical specialties who are also on strike, their demands include a substantial salary increase and an end to compulsory civil service, which requires them to work for two to four years in remote areas of the country after finishing their  medical studies.
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