The head of the Dominican Medical Association (CMD), Dr. Waldo Ariel Suero tried to force his way into the offices of the Ministry of Public Health at the end of a march on Tuesday, 24 October 2017. The physicians had marched to demand the fulfillment of an agreement signed with the government.
As they reached the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Health, striking physicians lifted up the CMD president and tried to cross the barriers that the police had placed in front of the ministry. In the shoving and pushing, Dr. Suero almost fell to the pavement. He yelled out loud: “We have been attacked in your office, Minister. One of these days, you will no longer be the Minister of Public Health neither will you be with the doctors. We came here with a willingness to talk.”
Suero confirmed the 48-hour strike at public hospitals and primary care facilities throughout the country starting on 25 October 2017. He also warned that after 8 November, when the CMD holds its internal elections, strikes will continue and there will be demonstrations that will show that the struggle is not political as Minister Altagracia Guzman Marcellino has claimed. This is the fourth strike called by the CMD in October.
Both Minister Guzman and the director of the National Health System, Dr. Jose Rodriguez Monegro, say the government has kept its part of the bargain and that it is the physicians who have not honored the agreement.
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Diario Libre
Hoy
25 October 2017
