Salvadoran doctors demand protection against COVID19

(ORIGINAL EN ESPAÑOL AQUÍ)

 

Members of the Union of Doctors of the Social Security Institute (SIMETRISSS) denounced that authorities from the Ministry of Health and the Institute itself are not providing them with Personal Protective Equipment to deal with the pandemic of COVID-19.

According to the doctors, if supplies have been delivered, the process has not been equitable, so they urged that “if there is equipment, it is delivered to them, that those in charge of their distribution do their research and see the need” in places where it is urgent.

 

SIMETRISSS regretted that “they are improvising, something has failed; otherwise, we would not be mourning the death of 25 doctors today“.

 

It is a reality at the national level. We do not have protection supplies, and that is why we demand from our government that we be provided with protection equipment to continue serving covid-19 patients“, said in a press conference the secretary general of the Union (SIMETRISSS), Luis Chávez.

 

Another of the doctors assured that there are cumbersome procedures for the acquisition and distribution of personal protective gear, which has forced doctors to buy them from their own money.

Doctors dressed in white coats and covered with light blue or white masks, stood in a square next to a Social Security hospital in San Salvador to denounce that they have had to pay masks or biosecuriy gear “out of their own pockets”.

 

One of the doctors who works at the Social Security (ISSS) in San Miguel, expressed that in that regional hospital they are experiencing similar situations as the rest of the country; but since it is a COVID-19 hospital and, due to the infrastructure they have, things look rather hard.

She also stressed their level of workload, which means that “we already have tired, deceased, infected doctors. I hope that our demands are heard“.

 

We have to mourn the death of 25 doctors as a result of this pandemic, they were colleagues from the Social Security and the Ministry of Health. There are also 40 other people who died and belonged to the health personnel such as nurses and staff support” added Melqui Ramírez, member of SIMETRISSS.

 

SIMETRISSS also denounced that no screening tests have been carried out to detect COVID-19 and that the unequal distribution in the care centers is a responsibility of the Standardization and Surveillance Division from the ISSS, which has led to the under-registration of cases and wrong statistics, which show an unreal scenario of the pandemic.

They regretted that all these errors have resulted in a high rate of contagion and deaths among ISSS and Ministry of Health workers.

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