Twenty Four Hour Strike Leaves Only Two Emergency Rooms Open

Tomorrow and early Tuesday morning will not be good days to be hit by gunfire in Juarez, since the only two emergency rooms available may have long waiting lines. So please try to choose another day to take a bullet wound

Various medical associations, grouped under a new umbrella organization called Médicos Unidos por Juárez, have decided to stage a twenty four-hour suspension of activities in emergency rooms--except for two sites--to protest the kidnapping of 11 doctors and the assassination of three so far this year. The strike, which will begin on Monday morning at 7:30 a.m., is more than just symbolic, inasmuch as the largest hospitals, including the three social security hospitals, the general hospitals of zone 6 and 35, and all private hospitals are joining in. Only the anchor General Hospital (on Paseo Triunfo de la Republica and Fernando Montes de Oca) and and the Hospital for Municipal Workers (on Adolfo Lopez Mateos and Anillo Envolvente del Pronaf) will continue working as usual during the work stoppage.

The doctors, moreover, are asking the three levels of government--state, local, and federal--to take action on a variety of issues. Among these is the clarification of the deaths of doctors Alfonso Rocha and Alberto Betancourt; for police to conduct their work with visible identity badges and without masks; for state funding of medical facilities to be proportional to that generated by the city; and for the state to create a special fund to reactivate the economy of Juarez. Other points include the professionalization of the municipal police force; the assignment of 200 federal agents to investigate the thousands of unresolved crimes; and greater accountability and punishment for corrupt public officials.

Alfredo Lugo Villa, a spokesperson for Médicos Unidos por Juárez told reporters that if the umbrella group has not received a "positive response" to these demands within seven days it will "escalate" measures until authorities begin to pay attention. “This movement comes from the citizenry, it is not political, it has no partisan affiliation, and it does not derive from any labor or contractual issues," he said.

Click here for story in Diario.