Health workers began their hunger strike on Tuesday in front of the Peruvian Ministry of Labor in the capital Lima. About a dozen doctors from the national social security union have participated in protests there as the healthcare system struggles to deal with a second wave of Covid-19.
“We have started a hunger strike,” said Teodoro Quinones, a doctor who participated in the protest, according to Reuters.
Quinones said the strike would last until Peru’s Minister of Labor dismisses the country’s head of Social Security, Fiorella Molinelli, who oversees the government’s efforts to establish temporary health and isolation centers for Covid-19 patients.
Until Thursday, Molinelli, did not comment on the union’s claims.
Protesters have strongly criticized the government’s approach to the pandemic and are calling for greater investment in the health sector.
“Our ICUs are collapsing and we are not receiving any response and we are seeing the indifference of a government that allocates the budget to us,” Peruvian nurse Ketty Solier told Reuters on Tuesday.
“We need to purchase this equipment urgently to prevent more Peruvians from dying. The Peruvian State has a constitutional obligation to guarantee accessibility to health services and at the moment they are denying access to hospitals because we are no longer able to serve patients, they need it a lot, “she added.
“People are infected, there is no ICU bed, so there will be no more hospitalization. Once again we will see people dying on the street. About the vaccine, we have no hope for the vaccine, we don’t know when it will. arrive, “Ronald Castañeda, a relative of a Covid-19 patient, told Reuters.
ICU occupancy rates are 90% in some parts of Peru, according to the director of the Pan American Health Organization, Carissa Etienne, who described health system problems across Latin America in a virtual press conference on Tuesday.
“We are starting a second wave [of Covid-19 cases]. This wave is growing. I can say that we did some calculations and we are more or less certain when we were in mid-April, and the numbers continue to rise, “Health Minister Pilar Mazzetti told local media on Monday.
On Tuesday, Interim President of Peru, Francisco Sagasti, passed a decree to finance the installation of more than 16 temporary isolation centers across the country and to hire additional staff to expand health services, according to a note from Ministry of Health press on Tuesday.
Sagasti became president in November 2020, becoming the third president to take office in just one week, as the country struggled with political turmoil amid the pandemic.