Medical doctors across Sierra Leone on Monday August 1 2022 commenced an indefinite sit-down strike, demanding better conditions of service, leaving dozens of patients unattended.

Peter Mark Jajua, Public Relations officer of the Sierra Leone Medical and Dental Association (SLMDA), said the government in May made some deductions from their monthly salaries without any explanation and their individual weekly 45 liters of fuel was not being supplied to them.

He said they have had some meetings with the government about the issue, but the government has not looked into their demands yet.

Some doctors said the prices of essential commodities have increased and their salaries received are not commensurate with the economic situation.

The government said it has met the doctors’ demands and that salaries would be increased in September. Fuel vouchers will also be given out weekly, said health minister Austin Demby.

“It is very, very difficult to understand why a strike is needed,” Demby said.

But the backlog of extra pay due since May has not been addressed, and doctors don’t trust the fuel allowance system, said Edries Tejan, president of the Medical and Dental Association.

“The doctors are not convinced that particular system they are proposing is going to work,” he said.

The strike action will last as long as their demands are met, said Jajua.

Due to the strike, some hospitals in Sierra Leone have temporarily stopped receiving new patients from Monday.

At Connaught one of the largest government hospital in Freetown dozens of patients are reportedly left there, hopeless with no doctors to attend to them.

An old man in excruciating pain with his catheter hanging, pleaded for the Government to intervene and end the strike.

“I had an appointment for a surgery today but I cannot reach the doctor. I am told he is not on duty because of the strike and he is not answering my calls”, he told BBC’s Umaru Fofana, as he fought back tears.

Fofana added that, “His stoicism would soon cave in. He shed tears, warning: “If this is not resolved now, many people will die”.

A middle-aged woman, who sat on the floor groaning from an abdominal pain, said she had been waiting for hours without a doctor and did not know what to do. She had no relative beside her and could barely stand up.

At the PCMH, another government hospital catering mainly for women and children, dozens of pregnant women sat at the antenatal unit, expecting to see a doctor. They did not even know there was a doctors’ strike before they got to the hospital, as reported by Umaru Fofana.

The sister in charge of the unit, Loretta Macaulay said they had no doctors on duty “because they are all on strike…Normally we would have two or three doctors here but for now we don’t have any. Only the specialists are working and the workload is too much for them.”

Fofana further reported that, “A few expatriate doctors working as partners were elsewhere helping out. A woman with an obstructed labour, lost her baby. The midwives fought gallantly to save the mother. She was lucky to have survived.”

It is rumoured that the Vice President of Sierra Leone, Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh will meet with the doctors today in order to settle their grievances and for them to return to hospitals.