Maputo — The Mozambican Medical Association (AMM), which claims to represent the country's doctors, has decided to postpone their national strike which had been scheduled to take place as of Monday.

According to the head of AMM, Napoleão Viola, speaking to reporters, on Saturday, in Maputo, the strike may start on 2 September, if the government does not respond to the doctors' demands.

Viola said the AMM took the decision to postpone the strike following meetings with the government as a way of giving the government space to seek solutions to the concerns of the doctors.

"The government has pledged to resolve the outstanding issues during August and, if this doesn't happen, we will start our strike on 2 September. A technical commission has been set up between the AMM and the Health Ministry to monitor the working conditions in all the country's hospitals and assess the salaries of doctors', he said.

The strike, which the AMM calls "the third phase of the third national strike', had been scheduled to last for 21 days, but to be extended if there was no advance in negotiations with the government.

The strike will not be a complete shutdown of the National Health Service. The AMM has promised to keep "minimum services' functioning, in order to care for seriously ill patients.

The list of demands submitted to the Health Ministry by the AMM in late 2022 contained 23 points. The AMM says the government replied to six of them, leaving 17 to be solved.

In August 2023, when the AMM suspended its strike, the government promised to set up a joint negotiating commission, but no such commission has ever met.