Morocco health unions escalate protests over reform disputes

Morocco’s national health sector unions are pressing ahead with an escalating protest campaign, citing what they describe as unprecedented tensions within the public health system and a lack of dialogue with the Health and Social Protection Ministry over ongoing reforms.

The National Coordination of Health Sector Unions has launched a series of weekly protests throughout January, staging demonstrations every Thursday to coincide with government council meetings. The campaign began nationwide on Thursday and is set to culminate in a nationwide strike across public health institutions on the final Thursday of the month.

The latest protests follow a meeting of the National Health System Reform Steering Committee held Wednesday under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, which focused on monitoring the implementation of major health sector reforms.

Despite the meeting, union leaders said the protest program remains unchanged.

Mohamed Aarioua, secretary-general of the Democratic Organization of Health, tells Hespress AR the unions have yet to receive any official invitation for talks from the supervising ministry.

“The absence of communication raises serious questions about how the ministry is operating,” Aarioua told Hespress AR. “Health professionals do not know whether reforms are being carried out unilaterally or through a participatory approach.”

He added that the steering committee meeting does not justify suspending the protest plan, noting that its outcome was limited to a government statement that failed to clarify the fate of several outstanding issues, including delayed regulatory decrees, performance-based pay, and staff transfer mechanisms.

For his part, Hamza Ibrahimi, a regional secretary of the National Union of Public Health and a founding member of the Democratic Labor Federation within the territorial health groups and regional health agencies in Tangier–Tetouan–Al Hoceima, said the coordination has been protesting for a second consecutive month through local and regional demonstrations nationwide.

“These actions reflect the level of frustration in the sector,” Ibrahimi said, accusing the government of pursuing a top-down approach to reform without proper evaluation or meaningful engagement with health professionals’ representatives.

He said official government rhetoric on reform does not match conditions on the ground, pointing to what he described as a stark gap between declared objectives and day-to-day realities in health facilities.

Ibrahimi also criticized the rapid promotion of the territorial health group model in the Tangier–Tetouan–Al Hoceima region as a success story, despite only three months of implementation and the absence of any independent institutional assessment.

According to Ibrahimi, the experiment has yet to deliver measurable improvements in access to care, service quality, or working conditions, instead fueling concerns over the future of workers’ rights. He cited an election boycott rate exceeding 80% in the group’s board elections as evidence of growing discontent.

Union leaders also condemned what they described as delays in implementing the July 23, 2024 agreement with the government, more than 18 months after its signing. Outstanding demands include issuing regulatory texts for the health civil service law, adopting a mobility decree, activating performance-based pay, increasing compensation for work in remote areas, and safeguarding existing benefits such as civil servant status and centralized payroll management.

Ibrahimi said the protest campaign will continue and intensify to defend the dignity and acquired rights of health workers and to push for a strong, equitable, and effective public health system built on genuine social dialogue rather than unilateral decisions.