Ecuadorean Doctors Protest Against Precarious Labor Conditions

The Ecuadorian Medical Federation (FME) summoned health workers to protest on Thursday against the elimination of norms contemplated in the Humanitarian Support Law that granted job stability to public officials who worked during the epidemiological emergency.

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Starting at 4:30 p.m., doctors and nurses will hold rallies in several provinces to demand that President Guillermo Lasso guarantee supply of medicines in public institutions, grant job stability to workers, and approve the Health Career Law and the Health Code. 

"Throughout the country, doctors feel indignation... We ask the President to make changes in the health sector because doctors are not willing to endure the same thing," FME Vice President Carlos Piedra stressed.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Ximena Garzon hinted that their rallies are politically motivated and will worsen the epidemiological situation. The workers' response was immediate.

"The medical associations' fight is for the rights and wellbeing of health professionals. We do not want to destabilize the government", the Pichincha Medical College President Victor Alvarez said and explained that Lasso has not resolved the situation of 15,000 colleagues who have been working under provisional contracts over the last 14 years.

The precarious working conditions that doctors and nurses are experiencing, however, are also present in other economic activities.

On Wednesday, the Workers' United Front (FUT) went to Congress to present a Labor Code project that seeks to prevent the advance of neoliberal policies promoted by the Lasso administration. Healthcare unions have endorsed this proposal.