Health workers maintain protests despite government bonuses

Caracas .- Workers in the health sector protested Friday in the streets of several cities across the country, demanding better wages, despite the premiums they claimed to receive from the state in their last payments.

Ana Rosario Contreras, president of the Nurses Association of Caracas, told reporters that the union has accumulated (from the Ministry of Health) a payment for "incidents" and "thought we would demobilize with that ", while He noted that the protest will remain" with more force in the street ".

Contreras reiterated that health workers "claim constitutional rights that the national government does not fulfill" and that they also demand respect for the right to life and health, as well as the right to to receive a decent salary, EFE reviewed

After 19 days of protests, nurses called on patients to support the protests.

"This is not a problem that only concerns workers in the health sector, it is a problem that affects the entire Venezuelan people," said Margot Monasterios, representative union of the Clinical University Hospital of Caracas. .

According to the monasteries, they are tired of seeing "Venezuelan citizens crying fearing to die", for lack of supplies and medicines which, he assures, come under the responsibility of President Nicolás Maduro, who 39, he called to assume.

Premiums paid to employees in the health sector range between $ 9 ($ 75 or $ 3.6, depending on the exchange rate used) and $ 28 million ($ 233 or $ 11).

Venezuela, the country with the largest oil reserves in the world, is undergoing a severe economic crisis that is resulting in a shortage of staple foods and hyperinflation, a phenomenon that spoils the power of energy. purchase of workers.

The government reacted to this phenomenon by periodically increasing the minimum income and by granting bonuses that do not affect the calculation of wages and also do not allow the basic basket to be paid, ie about $ 300 million. Bolivars ($ 2,500 or $ 120).