LABOUR-EL SALVADOR: Three-Month Strike Paralyses Health Services

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Néfer Muñoz

SAN JOSE, Dec 27 2002 (IPS) - The public health system in El Salvador has been brought to a standstill by a three-month strike against its privatisation, and the deficit of health services could give rise to social chaos in January.

Around 85 percent of the 11,500 public employees of the Salvadoran Social Security Institute (ISSS) have joined the strike, which was declared on Sep 19.

On Dec 24, the impact of the stoppage was heightened when large public hospitals suspended all activity, including emergency services.

The walkout has continued despite the pressure from the government, which three months ago decided to withhold the salaries of the striking workers to induce them to return to their jobs.

An estimated 1,100 of the functionaries who have joined the walkout are doctors. The rest are members of the nursing staff and other hospital personnel.

The strikers are demanding that President Francisco Flores stop implementing policies that would privatise some aspects of the health system of the impoverished Central American nation of 6.2 million.

The workers are also calling for the release of five trade union leaders who were thrown in jail, the reinstatement of several public employees who were laid off, and the payment of the salaries that were held back.

”The conflict is very bad, and we are sure it is going to get worse in January,” surgeon Isaías Cordero, the secretary-general of the union of ISSS doctors, told IPS.

The physicians on strike have decided to form brigades and treat patients in the public squares of several cities and towns, but not in the hospitals, he said.

”For us, this Christmas and New Year is not a time of celebration but of worry,” added Cordero, who warned that public employees in education, the water company and transport may join the walkout next month.

The government set up a negotiating table brokered by the Catholic Church, but the talks have been fruitless, and are currently stalled.

Flores himself addressed the striking doctors in a nationally broadcast message, offering them a payment in advance of up to 1,500 dollars if they returned to work.

”If you, Social Security doctor, have not yet gone back to work, you can do so and receive payment in advance that you can redeem by working overtime,” he said.

The president urged the physicians to carry out all of the operations that have been suspended and attend all postponed doctor’s appointments. He also warned that they would be replaced by other doctors if they did not return to their jobs.

But the trade union leaders told IPS that no one would return to work and no other doctors would be allowed to enter the hospitals until the government scrapped its privatisation plans.

”The costs don’t matter. The workers are totally invested in this struggle, which we will continue to the ultimate consequences,” Ricardo Monge, secretary-general of the union of ISSS workers, remarked to IPS.

”With our struggle, we are sending a message to Latin America and to the world. We cannot let those in power dismantle and destroy the heritage that belongs to the people,” he added.

The conflict was politicised by the involvement of the leading parties on the right and the left.

The governing National Republican Alliance (ARENA) and the opposition Party of National Conciliation (PCN), both of which are right-wing, have harshly criticised the strike, which is backed by the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), a party that is opposed to the neoliberal policies of the Flores administration.

ARENA and the PCN have called for a halt to the strike, on the argument that it is endangering the health of thousands of Salvadorans. They also maintain that the privatisation of some health services would improve the attention received by the public.

”We cannot force the doctors to return to their posts, which is why we have invited them to reflect on the situation,” said Vice-President Carlos Quintanilla.

The government cannot allow the stoppage to drag on for months and months, and may take measures within the next few weeks, he warned.

An agreement looked like it was around the corner in October, when the government issued a decree prohibiting the privatisation of the health services.

But the ARENA and PCN legislators overturned the decree in the single-chamber Congress on Dec 19, and the talks came to a halt.

Some analysts believe the conflict and its outcome will have an influence on the voting in the Mar 16 municipal and parliamentary elections. But they say the situation could benefit either the left or the right.