Guatemala Agrees Ending Hospital Crisis
The conflict in the Guatemalan hospital network is near a solution on Saturday, after the agreement reached between physicians and the government to normalize external consultations.

After several meetings this week, authorities promised to deliver some 18 million quetzals (about $2.3 million) to the Health Ministry, to invest them in hospitals this year.

The Executive will request the Republic's Congress to increase the sector's budget for 2007.

The accord was inked by Sergio Rivas, representative of resident physicians, Health Minister Victor Gutierrez, as well as Human Rights Attorney Sergio Morales and San Carlos University Rector Estuardo Galvez, as honorary witnesses.

In virtue of this commitment, a commission will be created on Monday to determine if hospitals fulfill the minimum requirements of infrastructure, supply and financial aspects to normalize their functions.

The June 9 strike in Roosevelt and San Juan de Dios hospitals has become a national movement that provoked the resign of the then Health Minister Marco Tulio Sosa.