Resident doctors and attendees from Buenos Aires decided this Tuesday in an assembly a unemployment for an indefinite period after a meeting with the undersecretary of Health Planning of the local Government, Daniel Ferrantein which they raised their labor and salary demands.
“We stopped because we have no confidence in the City Government (from Buenos Aires) nor in the Association of Municipal Doctors (AMM). What we achieved, we achieved in the street and with the mobilization”, the resident of the Sardá maternity confirmed to Télam Carina Goya.
Goya said that at the meeting the Buenos Aires Government “committed to paying guards already made outside the agreement and that are not usually paid.”
He also pointed out that “they promised to schedule a meeting with the Minister (of Health) Fernan Quiros, the AMM and our assembly for next week. Perhaps on Tuesday, but it is to be confirmed by the GCBA.”
Despite the promises, the doctor explained that the assembly voted to strike as of this Wednesday because “we do not trust the City Government or the WMA. What we achieved, we achieved in the street and with the mobilization“. And he added that “it is the first time that they include us and recognize our assembly, which they always ignored.”
According to reports, resident doctors and attendees from Buenos Aires will meet this Wednesday at 10 a.m. on Callao and Corrientes avenues to move again to the offices of Minister Quirós, on Bolívar 1, in front of Plaza de Mayo.
“We want to show the unity we have and we join together with the Garrahan (Hospital) claim to defend health,” Goya concluded.
The health workers grouped in the Residents’ Assembly left this Tuesday from the headquarters of the Association of Municipal Doctors (AMM) and cut off the intersection of Roque Sáenz Peña Avenue (Diagonal Norte) and Rivadavia.
“I don’t know what Quirós has more important than attending to the 4,500 residents who are carrying out these measures of struggle,” Goya had said when insisting on the request for an audience with the minister.
health workers marched in recent weeks to the Buenos Aires Ministry of Healththe Ministry of Finance and the Government Headquarters without obtaining “a clear response” from the officials of these agencies.
From the assembly, the residents say that the salaries they receive are “below the basic basket and the attendees do not receive a salary or ART.”
“We are demanding the reopening of parity, because they closed them without consulting us or the WMA. Nor did they do it with the Federation of Professionals of the City. That is why we demand the salary recomposition of everything lost. We are going to mobilize so that they receive us and give us an urgent response. We want them to listen to us in the union and in the Ministry,” Penna Hospital resident Franco Capone told Télam.
Currently, resident doctors receive an average salary below the basic basket, with salaries of $110,000, while concurrent doctors work ad honorem, it was explained.
“Precariousness is the rule. Meanwhile, we fulfill working days of up to 360 hours per month, guards of 24 and up to 36 hours in a row; many also suffer moonlighting to make ends meet,” they indicated from this assembly in a statement.
Capone explained that it is “a historic day” since, after an inter-hospital assembly, “doctors and non-medical staff workers decided to accompany the residents today.”
The resident doctor had said that if they did not get a response they were willing to call a strike for this Wednesday.
“The idea is that it be an indeterminate strike that we are going to vote for day by day. We went to the three places that touch our salary and in none of them there was a response and on top of that they threaten us that they will not pass the exams that we are taking during our residency Basically we are going to repeat a year for fighting for our rights,” Capone said.
Goya explained that they had a meeting with the head of the AMM, Carlos Rojo, who “agrees with the claim” but “cannot endorse a strike” because it is being carried out “outside the union.”
“They promise to help us in case there are sanctions, but not to avoid them,” Goya explained, adding that the federation recommended that they have “a meeting with Quirós.”
Resident and concurrent doctors denounced “persecution” by hospital management, which, they said, ask for “attendance lists to persecute those of us who participate in the strikes.”
