The Dominican Medical Association (CMD) has called yet another strike at public hospitals, this one for 48 hours to last from Wednesday 15 November through Thursday 16 November. The strikes are to pressure the government to negotiate with the CMD. The CMD demands payment of wage increases of 15% to thousands of doctors as they say had been agreed with the government.
This will be the seventh strike called by the CMD during the past quarter of the year. The strikes primarily affect the indigent and those that live in the provinces that are the main users of the public hospitals.
Spokespersons for the CMD have stated that as soon as the Minister of Public Health or any other competent authority agrees to talk to them the strike will be lifted.
According to outgoing CMD president, Waldo Ariel Suero, the strikes have never had to do with the internal elections. The vice president of the CMD, Wilson Roa was elected president in elections this month. He begins his presidency on 8 December 2017.
Minister of Public Health Altagracia Guzmán Marcelino asked the rector of the Santo Domingo Catholic University Monsignor Jesus Castro to resume talks with the CMD as soon once the new president is sworn in. She said the meeting would be at the Catholic University main campus. News reports mention the date of 14 December 2017.
Meanwhile, the former candidate for the presidency of the Dominican Medical Association (CMD), Clemente Terrero, has said that he has “overwhelming” proof that the CMD elections were “a major fraud”. He stated that the fraud was planned and carried out by the association president and alleged that ballot tables were absconded, doctors taken off the voting registry and dead people were included on the voting list. He issued a document delivered on Monday, 13 November, to the Electoral Committee of the CMD. The CMD announced that Wilson Roa had won with around 70% of the vote.
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14 November 2017
