This position of the National Union of Doctors of Angola (Sinmea) is part of its "view on the state of health in Angola", presented this Thursday at a press conference, in which they deplored the "not betting" on the primary health system.
According to the outgoing director of Sinmea, in the last five years, the Government has made a large investment in the curative system 'versus' the secondary and tertiary health system, "inverting the pyramid of the organization of a true health system".
"Which, in our understanding, is probably a way to justify spending millions of unconfessed dollars", reads the communiqué presented by the union's president, Adriano Manuel.
With regard to human resources, and despite public tenders, these "are far short of the country's needs", noted the union.
Sinmea, which ended its five-year mandate on January 27th and will hold a mandate renewal congress next March, recalled the two claim documents sent to the authorities, "but which did not have any support".
The "high" mortality rate in Angola, the high number of unemployed doctors trained in Angola and abroad, the deficit of human resources, the "very poor" salary of Angolan doctors and the guarantee of better assistance in the primary health system are part of the claims notebooks.
The improvement of the operation of epidemiological surveillance teams to combat neglected diseases, the provision of essential medicines and equipment for caring for critically ill patients are also among the demands of Angolan doctors in the last five years.
They regret the lack of responses to their concerns, presented to the President of the Republic, to the deputies and to the vice-president of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which, in their opinion, constitutes a "lack of consideration for Sinmea".
"It constitutes a lack of consideration for an institution that only wants to help the Government, in particular, and the country, in general, in solving health problems in Angola", pointed out Adriano Manuel.
"We conclude that the Government of Angola sees the doctors' union as a visceral enemy and a target to be shot down, when it should have it as a true ally for the growth and development of the country", refers in the communiqué.
These health professionals in Angola also said that they had not observed improvements in the primary health system, which is why "a high rate of maternal and child mortality persists, all because at the primary level there is almost nothing".
Sinmea also denounced that 18-year-olds are being subjected to hysterectomy (surgical removal of the uterus), "removing them from the possibility of having children, because of a health system that does not work".
The construction of new hospitals with state-of-the-art equipment, they say, is not accompanied by the training of staff to handle the respective equipment.
The doctors' union, which suspended the last strike in April 2022, also regretted the lack of specialist doctors in endocrinology, gastro, neurosurgery, psychiatry, cardiology, hematology and others in several provinces of the country.
The arrival of expatriate doctors "constitutes a real mafia, since many of them do not have skills and many are not even specialists", they point out.
The doctors, who "continue to earn terrible wages and are subject to institutionalized slavery imposed by the Government", conclude that "there is no commitment by the Government to solve the population's health problems".
On the 24th and 25th of March, in Luanda, Sinmea holds its second congress for the renewal of the mandate of its governing bodies, with the outgoing president, Adriano Manuel, admitting to running for office again.
