The majority of striking doctors belonging to the Asociación Médica Dominicana (AMD) have yet to return to work due to the refusal of the Instituto Dominicano de Seguro Social (IDSS) to pay them for the months of January, February and March, as did the Ministry of Public Health. The almost more than five-month-old doctors’ strike seemed to have come to its end last week when the Ministry of Public Health paid the strikers for the months in question, even though they had not worked during that time. The directors of the IDSS, however, claimed that they did not have the money to pay the salaries for January, February and March, and refused to give the checks to the striking doctors.
The president of the AMD, Dr. Francisco Canó González, called on his members not to return to work at the IDSS hospitals nor those of the Ministry of Public Health until the former paid its doctors. In reaction to the position of the AMD, the IDSS hardened its position on 25 April when its governing council decided to continue to retain the striking doctors’ checks and to terminate 500 doctors which it claims were on the payroll without working. AMD members protested by picketing outside the IDSS’s central office while the governing council was coming to its decision.
The Minister of Public Health, Dr. Victor García Santos, warned that all doctors who have not gone back to work in public hospitals will not receive their checks for the month of April.
The current doctors’ strike is the longest in the history of the Dominican Republic.
3-9 May 1996