The Doctor's Syndicate Board said at a news conference on Wednesday that the ratio of the strike in public hospitals around the country amounted to about 55 percent on Wednesday, a slight improvement from the previous time.
According to the syndicate, the strike reached 60 percent in Cairo, 70 percent in Sharqiya, Gharbiya, Sohag and Luxor, 65 percent in Alexandria, 50 percent in Ismaili Aswan and Kafr al-Sheikh, 40 percent in Behira and Damietta, 30 percent in Qalubia and Daqahliya.
On the other hand, the strike is zero percent in both Minya and Fayoum.
Mona Mina, the Secretary-General of the Doctor's Syndicate said that the strike has seen a slight increase on the part of doctors, noting that the Directors of hospitals gathered heads of departments in the hospital on Wednesday morning to see who wants to take part in the strike, stressing that the syndicate would not accept threatening doctors or any abuse against them.
Dr Ihab al-Tahir, Secretary General of the Syndicate in Cairo, said that there is about 30 public hospitals in Cairo, of which about 19 participated in the partial strike, in commitment to the decision of the Syndicate's General Assembly.
Taher accused the Health Ministry of instructing hospital administrators to force doctors to break the strike and resume working, and threatening doctors on strike.
In contrast, Hisham Atta, head of the curative medicine and a member of the crisis committee at the Health Ministry, said in a press statement that the rate of participation in the strike by doctors on Wednesday amounted to 17 percent, going down from last Monday's strike, which amounted to 18.7 percent.
The ministry said in a statement that the operations room held around the clock in the ministry, has not received any complaint so far on the occurrence of a failure of providing health services to the citizens around the country.
The striking doctors demand Health Ministry to apply their version of a new cadre regulating financial payment and promotions of doctors, accusing the ministry of applying its own version of the cadre which falls short of their demands.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
