An indefinite strike was called by doctors in the Juan Pablo Pina public hospital in San Cristóbal on Monday, 23 January 2017. The strike would be called off later in the day after the Dominican Medical Association (CMD) agreed to a meeting with the director of the National Public Health System (SNS), Dr. Nelson Rodríguez Monegro to discuss the situation at the hospital.
The doctors are protesting what they referred to as hazardous working conditions and abuses of power exerted by the hospital director, Dr. Roberto Lafontaine.
The doctors are asking for the dismissal of the hospital director, stating that he verbally mistreats physicians and staff and has issued reprimands without cause.
The strike was led by the vice president of the Dominican Medical College, Wilson Roa, who warned that the doctors would not return to work until their demands had been met and that working and hygiene conditions in the hospital were unacceptable.
Specifically, Roa said that the gurneys in the maternity ward were unusable, and often two doctors had to manually hold open legs of the woman giving birth since there were no working sets of stirrups available.
He said that physicians and nurses were over-worked, noting that more than 20 doctors had been pensioned off and not replaced.The regional health director, Jose Daniel Martinez Garces, although not denying that problems exist, claimed that the friction between the hospital’s director and the medical staff was a result of the director’s insistence that hospital personnel comply with the newly implemented agreement regarding attendance and working hours. He assured reporters that his office was in the process of reviewing applications for new staff, including a new director, since Dr. Lafontaine is only a temporary appointment.
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Listín Diario
Diario Libre
24 January 2017
