Doctors, nurses and other health professionals in the state sector will lay down their tools for 24 hours, starting tomorrow, and resume the stoppage on Tuesday for a further 48 hours. This is the latest in a series of protests aimed at securing a 100% salary rise. Medical association president (CMD) Waldo Ariel Suero explained that the strike was being called in reaction to the government’s indifference to the plight of the nation’s health workers.
Health Minister Jose Rodriguez Soldevilla called on the CMD leaders to find another way of making their demands, reminding them that the government does not have the funds to increase the salaries of an entire professional sector. On behalf of the CMD, Suero said that the need to improve pay and conditions in the health sector is imperative, with workers in the sector “on the verge of social and economic collapse due to their low salaries and the extremely high cost of the family shopping basket.” Emilio Lapayesse writes in Hoy newspaper that at election time no one should be asking for wage increases. With a certain degree of his characteristic curt wit, Lapayesse states that “those who are not satisfied always have the ‘yola’ option.”