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🇵🇾 Paraguay /Health & Science

Dissident Colorado Senators Back Special Committee as Paraguay’s Health Crisis Deepens

From ABC Color · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Ongoing story
  • Dissident senators from Paraguay’s Colorado Party backed a proposed crisis committee amid mass resignations by health professionals.
  • More than 200 anesthesiologists and 21 specialists from Ineram are among more than 400 doctors and specialists reportedly leaving over shortages and delayed pay restructuring.
  • Senator Lilian Samaniego accused the government of lacking political will to negotiate as the legal deadline for accepting resignations approaches.

Paraguay’s health crisis has triggered a political offensive in the Senate, where dissident Colorado lawmakers Lilian Samaniego and Juan Afara backed the creation of a special crisis committee proposed by Congress President Basilio Núñez.

The dispute follows mass resignations by health professionals, including more than 200 anesthesiologists nationwide and 21 specialists at the National Institute of Respiratory and Environmental Diseases, known as Ineram. Legislators fear the departures could push referral hospitals and facilities in the interior toward collapse.

More than 400 doctors and key specialists are reportedly leaving, citing shortages of supplies and basic medicines as well as a long-delayed salary restructuring. Samaniego said the resignations were especially painful because many of the doctors had played a major role in containing the COVID-19 pandemic.

It pains me, I do not even know how to express it, that 21 doctors from Ineram have resigned. The doctors who saved thousands and thousands of lives during the pandemic are resigning today. What pain, what helplessness. Enough is enough.

· Lilian SamaniegoThe senator described the resignation of Ineram specialists and their role during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It pains me, I do not even know how to express it, that 21 doctors from Ineram have resigned. The doctors who saved thousands and thousands of lives during the pandemic are resigning today. What pain, what helplessness. Enough is enough,” she said.

Samaniego said the countdown was underway because the legal deadline for definitively accepting the resignations of appointed doctors expires on Friday. Contract workers have more time. She accused the Executive of failing to engage with the doctors, saying, “The doctors have shown in every possible way that they are open to dialogue, but there is a lack of political will in the Executive, from the Ministry of Economy and from the health minister.”

The doctors have shown in every possible way that they are open to dialogue, but there is a lack of political will in the Executive, from the Ministry of Economy and from the health minister.

· Lilian SamaniegoShe blamed the government for failing to open negotiations with the resigning professionals.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Color in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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