Mass Exodus: Over 300 Moroccan Public Sector Doctors Submit Resignations Amid Healthcare Crisis

50 resignations were recorded in the Oriental, 30 in Ouarzazate, 131 in Casablanca, and yesterday 305 doctors from the Northern region submitted their collective resignation.

According to the director of health in the Northern region, these resignations remain, nevertheless, not effective, stressing that "this decision remains legally unfounded, as each doctor must submit his resignation unilaterally", before adding that the latter "continue to work" while awaiting the ministry’s response.

For the doctors, it is rather a "vicious circle", since even on an individual basis, the request has not received any feedback from the ministry. "They have taken legal action and won. Except that, here too, the ministry refuses to execute the court decisions," estimates a union official, who is also a doctor.

Among the priorities of the doctors’ grievance file are the improvement of working conditions and patient reception, a situation that doctors describe as "catastrophic" and that does not in any way meet "global scientific standards", the implementation of commitments, particularly concerning the scale (bac+8) in the calculation of salaries, and the two off-scale grades under study.

The doctors have also decided to wear black coats on April 29, as a sign of mourning, and declare, through the general secretary of the Union, that "we have warned the ministry that it has only two options: the first is to respond to our grievance file", and "the second option is that it accepts our resignations and issues them".