Egypt's Ministry of Health repeated its assertion on Monday that participation in a strike by doctors has been limited. 

Hisham Atta, the head of clinical medicine at the ministry, told Ahram Arabic that only 16 percent of doctors have participated, while ten out of 27 governorates have not taken part in it.

The Doctors Syndicate and the Health Ministry dispute the level of participation in the ongoing strike.

Doctors have been holding a partial strike since last week, demanding higher wages and better working conditions. Intermittent strikes nationwide have been ongoing since 2011.

Atta made the same claim about participation last Wednesday, saying that the strike level did not exceed 16.5 percent with ten governorates refraining from participation.

However, recently-resigned Doctors Syndicate General Secretariat Mona Mina estimated the strike participation was at 55 percent.  

Mina, the first non-Muslim Brotherhood member to hold the post in decades as well as the first woman to hold the post, resigned on Saturday.

In an online statement she explained that divisions within the syndicate's rank and file had left her unable to perform her role. Leaders and members of the syndicate have called on Mina to retract her resignation.

Mina represented the Independence List, a coalition of non-Brotherhood doctors formed in 2011. It includes Tahrir Doctors, Doctors without Rights and independents who had been the main organisers of a wave of strikes starting 2011.  

In December, the Independence list became the majority on the syndicate's board, breaking the Brotherhood's decades-long monopoly, and Mina was voted secretary-general.

Disagreements regarding the strike have recently left the syndicate in crisis.

Last Friday, the syndicate's emergency meeting to discuss the strike was postponed after only 300 members turned up, fewer than the 1,000 required for a quorum.

On Thursday, Egypt's interim president Adly Mansour issued a decree regulating the status of health care providers working in state hospitals and institutions.

A spokesman for the health ministry said the decree offers the health system higher salaries than doctors have long requested.

However, critics among doctors say the decree does not respond to demands as it only adds bonuses and does not increase basic salaries.