The president of the Dominican Medical Association (CMD), Dr. Senen Caba announced a protest march against the pension fund and health providers. The demonstrations will be next Tuesday, 18 October 2022 in the northeast and south of the country. The CMD calls for the Social Security Law to be amended to improve the conditions for insurance and pension plan holders and health care providers in both the Health Risk Administrators (ARSs) and the Pension Funds (AFPs).
The Dominican Association of Health Risk Managers says it was willing to sit at the dialogue table with the doctors, but said that the authorities are the ones who should intervene to end the conflict.
The Dominican Association of Health Risk Administrators considered that the authorities should intervene to end the conflict and calls for the CMD to the claims to the National Social Security Council (CNSS). The representatives of private companies have veto power in the CNSS.
Dr. Caba said that on 26 October 2022, the CMD would hold a warm-up demonstration in San Francisco de Macoris, the largest city in the northeast. The doctors will march from the San Vicente de Paul hospital to the Duarte park in San Francisco de Macoris.
This would be followed by the 2 November march scheduled for southern Azua province. In Azua, the demonstration will start at the Enriquillo square and end at the central park.
As on other occasions, the doctors’ union guarantees that the service in the health centers will not be affected. However, as reported in Noticias SIN, the CMD did not rule out that the work will be paralyzed at the national level after these demonstrations.
An editorial in Diario Libre published on 12 October 2022 points out how the amending of the social security law has stagnated and has not generated political will in the Executive Branch nor the Legislative Branch. The big winners are the billionaire financial sector that posts annual large yields in earnings when merely serving as a financial intermediary. The big losers are those needing health services and the physicians and nurses that provide the service.
Read more in Spanish:
Noticias SIN
Diario Libre
12 October 2022