The president of the Dominican College of Medics (CDM), Waldo Ariel Suero, announced the suspension of the 72-hour public hospital strike that would have begun today. The physicians agreed to have the executive editor of El Nacional newspaper, Radhames Gomez Pepin, mediate the conflict after Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez discouraged Monsignor Agripino Nunez from serving as mediator.
President Leonel Fernandez has said that the government does not have the funds to meet the doctors’ demand of a 100% salary increase. A 30% raise has been allotted to all public servants in the 2005 budget. Fernandez commented there are doctors in the union who suffer from “acute strikitis,” a notion that Suero rejected.
The medics will meet with Vice-President Rafael Alburquerque, himself a former minister of labor and professional labor arbiter, today at the Presidential Palace, where they will continue their talks on how to improve working conditions.
Listin Diario columnist Orlando Gil comments that the strike was only backed by a certain group within the CDM and had no outside support from the population that has endured numerous strikes at the public hospitals. Gil commented that the labor movement has fallen into nationwide discredit.