Nine days into doctors’ strike, Paraguay’s PLRA leadership to examine health crisis

Nine days after a doctors’ strike began in Paraguay, the leadership of the Liberal Radical Authentic Party, or PLRA, plans to debate the country’s worsening public-health situation.

The party’s Political Committee will meet at 4 p.m. on Tuesday at its headquarters, which is undergoing renovations. The agenda centers on “The situation of doctors and the health system in our country.” PLRA President Alcides Riveros called the meeting.

Riveros said party leaders would seek a deeper discussion and issue an institutional statement on the health crisis, the strike by medical workers, mass resignations of professionals and shortages of medicines. The shortages affect hospitals operated by the Health Ministry and the Social Security Institute, known as IPS.

Ricardo Estigarribia, the PLRA governor of Central Department, has sharply criticized President Santiago Peña’s administration over the lack of pharmaceutical supplies. He also backed the doctors’ mobilization, saying the strike exposes a system without medicines in which staff must use their own resources to cover structural shortcomings. During a political event, Estigarribia said, “The situation in the country is not good; the health system is not good.”

Estigarribia is seeking the presidency in 2028 and leads the New Liberalism movement. The PLRA’s new leadership has also created a Health Policy Directorate, appointing former Fernando de la Mora mayor Nilsa Sánchez to head it.

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The situation in the country is not good; the health system is not good.