305 doctors working in hospitals in northern Morocco announced their resignation in a collective letter to the Ministry of Health in protest against their working conditions, describing the health sector situation as "catastrophic".
"These conditions are not up to the expectations of citizens and their right to the treatment guaranteed by the constitution," the letter sent to the local health administration in Tangier on Friday by local media said.
"We received a request for collective resignation, which falls within the context of my demands," said the Regional Director of Health in Tangier, Tetouan and Al Hoceima Afifi Ikram.
"But this resignation has no legal basis because each doctor must submit his resignation unilaterally" to be legal.
The doctors, who are collectively resigning, are demanding better wages and are condemning deteriorating working conditions because of lack of human resources. "They continue to work," he said, adding that they were waiting for the ministry's response.
More than 200 doctors in the public sector last year announced their resignations for the same reasons, at a time when the Moroccan health system is suffering from a "shortage of workers" and "deep geographical, social and economic disparities," according to the World Health Organization.