NewsWhore
03-27-2008, 06:00 PM
Public hospital doctors went on strike yesterday, as promised. This is the third strike in the last three months by doctors who are demanding that the government increase their wages and provide other benefits. The government has been unwilling to budge and has even described the strikes as politically motivated, making the current administration even less unwilling to get to the negotiation table. According to Hoy there was an almost complete absence of doctors in the hospitals yesterday, and campaign groups like the Alternative Social Forum have come out in support of the striking doctors. Dominican Medical Association (CMD) president Waldo Ariel Suero says that the strike has been successful and says that the fact that the CMD offices were filled with government officials was proof of this. Suero says that of all the strikes this one has generated the most solidarity. Doctors are demanding salaries of RD$59,000 per month, elimination of the recovery quota and 1,600 residency positions for doctors.
Interviewed in Hoy newspaper, Public Health Minister Bautista Rojas Gomez supported the proposal that doctors should be paid according to the hours worked. He asked why a doctor who works all week now earns the same as a specialist who only works two or three days in a week. Although doctors are asking for more money, Rojas says that doctors have already received pay raises worth more than 60%. He also insisted the strike is just a way of hurting President Leonel Fernandez's re-election bid.
In related news, nurses are saying that they will not do the work of the absent doctors. The National Nurses Union (UNASED) has told its members to do just their jobs, and no one else's. UNASED president Minerva Magdaleno said that UNASED supports the doctors' strike 100% and called on Public Health Minister Bautista Rojas Gomez to come to the negotiating table to help resolve the dispute.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#8)
Interviewed in Hoy newspaper, Public Health Minister Bautista Rojas Gomez supported the proposal that doctors should be paid according to the hours worked. He asked why a doctor who works all week now earns the same as a specialist who only works two or three days in a week. Although doctors are asking for more money, Rojas says that doctors have already received pay raises worth more than 60%. He also insisted the strike is just a way of hurting President Leonel Fernandez's re-election bid.
In related news, nurses are saying that they will not do the work of the absent doctors. The National Nurses Union (UNASED) has told its members to do just their jobs, and no one else's. UNASED president Minerva Magdaleno said that UNASED supports the doctors' strike 100% and called on Public Health Minister Bautista Rojas Gomez to come to the negotiating table to help resolve the dispute.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#8)