The Dominican Medical College (CMD) has asked the Minister of Public Health to cease the firings of qualified doctors in the public health system. Yesterday they were notified of 25 more firings, bringing the total to 525. The CMD also pointed out that in the three plus months of the new government, the hospitals are in the same ruin that they were in the Mejia administration. That said, the doctor’s organization said that they would strike at the 163 hospitals run by the Ministry of Public Health next Wednesday and Thursday. Waldo Ariel Suero, the president of the CMD, made the announcement as he came out of a meeting with Public Health Minister Sabino Baez, with whom he said he had met five times without getting any satisfaction. He warned that the national strike could only be stopped by President Leonel Fernandez partaking in a meaningful dialogue with the doctors. In his comments to the reporters from Hoy, Dr. Suero repeated the litany of complaints that have been in the papers for more than four months: fuel for generators, lack of equipment, lack of basic medical goods such as bandages and medicines.