Given the difficulties in offering minimal care to patients attending the 23 hospitals of the Dominican Social Security Institute, medics announced they are indefinitely suspending their services at these centers. The physicians, nurses, lab technicians, psychologists, dentists and even administrative staff said that the public hospitals are in a state of emergency for lack of funds to purchase the minimal supplies they need to continue offering their services to patients. Dr. Rafael Castillo Burgos, chief of training at the Presidente Estrella Hospital in Santiago said that the decision is taken because the plight of the hospital staff has gone beyond their demands for better wages. ?What we are talking about here is that the lives of human beings who can no longer receive medical attention because this institution is bankrupt by people that could care less about our hospitals,? he said.
The decision coincides with the summit of health ministers from Central America and the Caribbean that will be held in Santo Domingo starting next week.