Assistant doctors, who are training to become specialists, will be on strike from Thursday 20 May for an indefinite period, Jean-Michel Mots, the president of the inter-university committee of assistant doctors (Cimacs) confirmed to Belga News Agency.
Notices about the movement, which is coordinated by Cimacs and its Flemish counter-part Vaso, will be sent to hospitals on Monday.
"The anger of doctors in the process of training for specialisation is not letting up. The constitutional rights of people in Belgium, as well as the fundamental rights of young doctors, are violated on a daily basis," a post on the Cimacs Facebook page stated.
Starting from 1 May, assistant doctors will carry out smaller actions, which are yet to be defined.
"These passive protests will continue until the date of the complete strike, of indefinite duration, of all doctors in training who care for you on the front line in hospital institutions throughout Belgium," the post read.
The group said it denounced the negotiations put forward by the hospital federations during the joint doctors-hospitals commission, and that a legal framework should be set up, allowing for working conditions "worthy of a human being in the 21st century."
Les menaces des institutions hospitalières commencent ... S'ils n'assument pas leurs méthodes, leurs offres de qualité de soins, les conditions de travail imposées, nous leur conseillons de se remettre en question. Nous avons plusieurs Gigaoctet de preuves, de courriels, ...
— CIMACS (@cimacs_be) May 1, 2021
"We are getting threats from hospital institutions... If they don't take responsibility for their methods, their offers of quality care, the working conditions imposed, we advise them to question themselves. We have several gigabytes of evidence, emails,..," the tweet reads.
"We are fighting for quality medicine and these people are only defending their interests", he added.
The Brussels Times
