About 300 Paraguayan Public-Sector Doctors to Resign Over Low Pay, Union Says

Around 300 specialist and subspecialist doctors in Paraguay’s public health system plan to resign, a union leader said, after a weeklong strike ended without an agreement with President Santiago Peña’s government.

Rossana González, secretary-general of the National Medical Union, said the resignations would be submitted to the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare. Doctors from several facilities are expected to take part, including the Niños de Acosta Ñu Pediatric Hospital in San Lorenzo, near Asunción.

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This is not against our patients, but the government has to understand that we have reached a point of unsustainability, where the salary they are paying today practically does not even cover transportation to work.

González said the move could leave the entire pediatric surgery service without doctors. “This is not against our patients, but the government has to understand that we have reached a point of unsustainability, where the salary they are paying today practically does not even cover transportation to work,” she told EFE.

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What we are asking is for the government to react and put forward a proposal.

About 11,000 public-sector doctors took part in a strike from Monday through Friday the previous week. They demanded higher salaries, supplies and medicines for hospitals, permanent appointments for about 9,000 temporary professionals, and other workplace benefits. Sinamed organized marches and sit-ins across the country, including a demonstration in Asunción that González said drew about 5,000 doctors.

Economy and Finance Minister Óscar Lovera said the government could not finance the 76% increase sought by public-sector doctors. He proposed raising salaries according to professional training through a new health-care career system. González said doctors would consider further pressure measures at a union assembly scheduled for the following Sunday and urged the government to present a proposal.

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Impossible.