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Doctors Strike in Peru
Lima - Doctors started a partial strike on
Wednesday in Peru, after Prime Minister Javier
Velasquez tried unsuccessfully to stop the protest
with a harsh official policy.
The Peruvian Medical Federation's protest demands
salary raises and more funds for health, with the
objective that State hospitals can fight the A(H1N1)
influenza, which has infected more than 2,000
people.
The strike only affects assistance at external
doctors' offices, Federation President Leoncio Diaz
reported, after a talk with Velasquez, in which he
tried to persuade the medical leadership to cancel
the strike.
Diaz asserted that the strikers are assisting people
in tents set in front of hospitals and emergency
services have not been affected.
The Health Ministry, which slammed the guild for
stopping its work when that authority is on yellow
alert from the A(H1N1) flu, holds that the strike is
a failure, which the federation rejects.
Meanwhile, the prime minister advocated dialogue as
a way to solve the social conflicts, in the
framework of a government policy hardening towards
the issue, after his appointment on Saturday.
He said the government would impose order and the
principle of authority, if in a determined period,
it does not reach an agreement with the social
organizations, with which it is holding
negotiations.
He also ruled out promises to cancel laws, because
the subject is relevant to the Republic's Congress,
although the negotiation tables established by his
predecessor, with different sectors, are dealing
with anti-neoliberal demands to cancel different
legal regulations.
Meanwhile, Ombudsman Walter Alban warned that the
government announcement of prioritizing order
against the protests, could generate more violence. |
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