"I was called in and what I saw was very horrifying," said Musa Ecweru, minister for disaster preparedness. "Three dead bodies had started decomposing on the ward beds and the sick people and their families looked on helplessly."

Ecweru was travelling in the north to assess the reconstruction needs of a region scarred by two decades of conflict, now halted, between government forces and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army.

A senior doctor at the hospital in the town of Lira, usually crowded with patients from camps for displaced people, said he was close to reaching a deal with the workers.

The local chairman of the Medical Workers Association, Fredrick Ogwang, said the hospital staff are supposed to receive about $40 monthly from the United Nations to supplement their meagre salaries but were angry at broken promises of payment.

"We work in the most horrific conditions here but a 30 percent allowance paid by UN agencies has been swindled by the authorities and that is what we want government to address," a striking medical worker who wanted to remain anonymous said.

Government doctors in the east African country earn $300 a month.