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The anxiety of this morning is water. María Teresa Rangel is dressed in a flawless white, with the lapel of the jacket full of decorations and the same shoes from 12 years ago. Starting at six in the morning, he is working and now he has connected a rusty tube to the sink tap of the Nursing Department of the Caracas University Hospital to channel the wire that leaves to the hospital. inside a container. From there, it fills smaller cylinders to help lower the toilets of some hospitalized patients. Another companion had to drive his car to another hospital in the west of the city, clogged this Friday with persistent rain, to look for surgical equipment that can not be sterilized at this health center because the hospital is not safe. autoclave is damaged for years.
"Today we have 10 women in labor and in this hospital there is no water and if we start bleeding how are we going to do, how will the doctors wash themselves? hands with this water, "says Maria Teresa indignantly, 71 years and a half of her life working as a nurse.
For 20 days, in addition to treating the sick and all contingencies of the acute health crisis that Venezuela is experiencing, nurses completed a day of daily protests across the country in demand for a living wage . What Maria Teresa earns in a month does not allow her to buy a sandwich for breakfast in the cafeteria of the hospital where she works. Earn a lot less than that. "My salary is 1,500,000 bolivars a month, which went up to 3 million (the current minimum wage, a little more than a dollar) and we were going to charge this Friday, but now they told us that They could not deposit the money because last night, computers were stolen from the staff area, "he says, cutting a tear that threatens his makeup, which disguises the years, but not fatigue
., and who found support in the guild of doctors and other health personnel, is so that their salaries correspond to the personnel of the Armed Forces, to whom Nicolás Maduro ordered a "substantial increase" a month ago established an adjustment indexed to the minimum wage, which is 5 million 196,000 bolivars, but hyperinflation has led the government to increase up to four times in a semester.
Although that the nurses are the ones that each day r war in the country's hospitals, the basic salary of a professional military employee can be up to 8.3 times higher than that of a nurse and in the case of the highest ranking , like that of colonel, until 24, 8
Chain of dissatisfaction
The recent increase in the army has imposed a huge gap between the salary of three million bolivars of a professional graduate and four specializations as Maria Teresa, front to that of a lieutenant-colonel who today earns 57 million basic salary bolivars, for example . The other more ranking officers exceed $ 200 billion in their salaries
The difference, which accentuates amidst the accelerated hyperinflation experienced by the country, has exacerbated the conflict in which the US military has been fighting. other professionals are beginning to add, such as doctors, university professors who have also started staggered strikes, teachers and workers of state-owned companies such as Corpoelec and the Caracas metro who protested this week for improvements wages and the denial of discrimination in civilian-military salaries. Less than two months after the controversial reelection of Maduro, the social conflict is growing without any solutions in sight.
"We want the salaries of the military, the same indexation. We are saving lives and this government is asking us to resign en masse from all nurses. We have been in conflict for twenty days and we have not received any calls from the Minister of Health, who is still looking for a space in his agenda to help us, "says Ana Rosario Contreras, president of the Nurses Association. of Caracas.
The unionist saw his union disintegrate. During the first 4 months of this year, he had to sign 1,200 school exit requests, a document used to seek work abroad, because of the economic crisis.
"We stay alone and our nurses get well-paid jobs. to his experience in other countries. "In Venezuela's hospitals, there is a deficit of 110,000 professionals, which prevents coverage of international recommendations that indicate that there should be one nurse for every four patients." Contreras fears that the situation will not be safe. The days of protests that have begun are accompanied by paralysis of their activities in areas that are not critical.The measurement of pressure, however, has little affected health centers that do not have how take care of the sick.
It is another of the requirements of the union, improving working conditions, that the state guarantees the inputs to be able to participate.
A survey conducted in March by the organization Physicians for Health found that 88% of hospitals in the country do not have drugs, in 79% there is no surgical equipment and in the same percentage there is has constant water faults. Stic included 104 public centers and 33 private centers, which account for 90% of the country's hospital beds. The study also probed the impact of migration among these professionals and found that 30% of doctors graduated 40 years ago are abroad and 75% of those who have graduated from the university just ten years ago
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