Yolanda Mamani Cayo / La Paz
The Bolivian Medical Association (CMB) decided yesterday to suspend the “strike of a thousand services”, scheduled for this day, and accepted the invitation to dialogue with the Minister of Health, Jeyson Auza. The meeting will be this Friday the 10th.
Meanwhile, the Federation of Medical Unions and Related Branches of Social Security (Fesimras) officially called a 24-hour “mobilized strike” for tomorrow, April 6, demanding compliance with their requests, according to a call issued yesterday and that instructed the unions of the public health medical branches of the nine departments to abide by the strike.
One of the main demands of the health workers sector is the dismissal of the current general manager of the National Health Fund (CNS), Herland Tejerina. The health workers already carried out a 24-hour strike the previous Thursday.
Doctors accept dialogue
Yesterday morning, after the president of the Bolivian Medical Association, Luis Larrea, announced the stoppage of activities and mobilizations for this day, given that the Government had not met the demands of the sector, in the afternoon Minister Auza He sent a written request, after which the doctors accepted the meeting and suspended the protest.
“We wait for the Bolivian Medical College (on Friday) at three in the afternoon in our facilities to start the dialogue tables,” said Auza.
Larrea later announced the suspension of the protest. “The presidents (of departmental medical colleges) have accepted this invitation, therefore we want to inform the professional (doctors) of the country that the activities of tomorrow (today) with the blockades of the thousand services are suspended. We are going to attend the dialogue”, affirmed Larrea.
The doctors ask for the repeal of the Health Emergency Law, the payment of the salaries of the doctors who worked during the pandemic, the provision of items on a national scale, the institutionalization of the charges, better conditions for hospital centers and security stability. Social.
The doctors also demand payment of the life insurance that the Government promised to those who lost their lives during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Auza was able to deactivate the measure of the doctors, but the health workers ratified the strike for this Wednesday.
The former leader of Sirmes La Paz Fernando Romero told Página Siete that if there is no rapprochement, the mobilizations could multiply.
Romero told the previous week that some 200 health workers in La Paz lost their lives fighting covid and that they did not collect the life insurance of 100,000 Bolivians that the Government promised in 2020.
