By Umaru Fofanah

Public sector doctors across Sierra Leone will embark on an indefinite nationwide strike on Wednesday 23 October unless government meets their long drawn-out demand on fuel allocation.

In a 3rd October letter written to the Permanent Secretary in the ministry of health, the medical and dental association says the strike notice of 21 working days elapses on Tuesday and their stay-at-home will start on the following day.

Their secretary general, Dr. Peter Mac-Jajua told me that since that reminder letter, nobody had contacted them for further engagements.

He said that many of their members were still owed fuel allocation for several months and that those who’d received their quota had to wait for six months with more backlog still to clear.

Health minister, Dr Austin Demby, told me that they’d given fuel to all doctors they could verify on the ground for the first and second quarters and that they were finalising plans to release their third quarter one this week.

He said that they’d called to meet the doctors even up to this morning but that their request was rebuffed. Dr Demby said that it would be regrettable if the industrial action went ahead “because patients will die”.

He said that while the doctors’ demand was “legitimate because it’s their entitlement”, the government was not to blame because it had met its own side as best as it could despite the competing financial needs of the state.

The doctors want their 45 liters of weekly fuel entitlement to be paid alongside their monthly salary which they say will be “more reliable”. The government has dismissed this saying it will have far reaching implications on taxation and other public sector workers.