Patient care at the Mario Ortiz Children’s Hospital is stopped. The workers are on strike for three days, from yesterday until Thursday.
Mercedes Vargas, general secretary of the Union of Workers of the Mario Ortiz Suárez Children’s Hospital, assured that the next step in her pressure measures will be an indefinite strike, if the demands of the sector are not met until tomorrow. “But we are hopeful that the authorities will listen to us and be able to respond to our needs. We are juggling to be able to attend to patients and we cannot continue like this,” Vargas remarked.
The protest has been staggered, in mid-July they stopped activities for 24 hours, last week they stopped for 48 hours and this week they are stopping for 72 hours.
Among the most urgent demands, the workers point to the hiring of at least 70 people, to cover care in the hospital. As explained by Vargas, they have reported the loss of 17 workers due to covid infection during this fifth wave, which have not been replaced.
The demand that causes controversy has to do with the hiring of a person for the administrative area.
The workers are upset because the Government did not hire a person who did internships before the incumbent retired, but instead hired another professional.
Edil Toledo, coordinator of hospital management of the Government, questioned the position of the union leaders, for trying to impose an administrative position on a particular person, without measuring the damage caused to patients. “That they show them the letters where they are requesting an item, it is not their function to place people in a position. This strike has no legal basis and harms the population, we are really upset, “he said.
Toledo pointed out that they are open to dialogue, but if they do not have favorable responses, legal action will be analyzed in the face of harm to the population.
Along the same lines, he asked the Ombudsman’s Office and the Labor Directorate to intervene in the face of the unjustified measure of the workers of this hospital.
However, the workers assure that the lack of personnel is not the only need. “The shortcomings are evident, the Children’s Hospital is already too small for the number of patients who come here,” claimed one of the nurses who was at the demonstration that was organized early yesterday.
As detailed, there is a lack of supplies, personnel and even space to cover the care of all the patients who arrive at that hospital.
affected parents
The demand of the workers is understood but not shared by the parents who arrive with their little ones in search of care and encounter a stoppage of activities.
“This situation is desperate, if an adult were the patient, they could endure it. But they are children, little ones, who do not know, they do not understand that they have to be patient to alleviate the pain, ”claimed a woman with her daughter in her arms. This position is shared by several mothers at the main entrance of the hospital.
