Doctors of the Dominican Medical Association (AMD), who have been on strike for three and a half months, marched from Parque Independencia to the National Palace on Tuesday, 20 February. The president of the AMD, Dr. Francisco Cano Gonzalez, was not permitted to meet President Joaquin Balaguer, but was received by the Secretary of the Presidency, Rafael Bello Andino. Dr. Cano Gonzalez gave Mr. Bello Andino a proposal that outlines the conditions under which the AMD would end their strike. The proposal is identical, according to the Listin Diario newspaper, to that which was read to viewers of the popular Sunday television variety program “El Gordo de la Semana”. The AMD is demanding a withdrawal of military doctors from public hospitals, who on 15 January replaced AMD members attending patients in emergency rooms and intensive care units. Dr. Cano claims that 24 hours after the withdrawal of the military personnel, AMD doctors would return to work under the condition that the government complies with an agreement signed between the two parties last 7 August. The agreement includes a 20% salary increase and a fixed import tax for vehicles brought into the country by AMD members.
The government responded, through the Minister of Public Health Dr. Victor Garcia Santos, that the import tax concession would be granted, together with the construction of 114 apartments in provinces near the Haitian border, but it has refused to comply with the salary increase. The AMD has pledged to continue the strike unless all terms of the agreement are met. There seems, therefore, to be no end to the dispute in sight.
1-7 March 1996