INFORM

Health workers at the capital's two main hospitals ended their 10-day-old strike on Sunday after they decided to accept the Sierra Leone government's offer, which would double their salaries.

The government offered a 100 percent increase in their salaries effective from March 1 and the setting up of a health commission in April which will oversee all recruitment and promotions in the sector.

The decision to return to work came after a discussion with President Ernest Koroma which lasted three hours Saturday night to iron out differences, a governmental source told AFP.

Koroma had earlier claimed that the strike had led to "some deaths."

One striker, speaking on condition of anonymity, said further discussions of improved working conditions will continue with the government, but they have in the meantime decided to end the action and go back to work.

The strikers had earlier criticised a government statement issued on Saturday in which they were told to either return to work on Monday or be fired.

The World Health Organisation estimates that there is less than one physician per 10,000 inhabitants in the country, whose healthcare system was left in tatters after a decade-long civil war ended in 2001.