A Nicaraguan hospital fired on Friday 40 staff members, including doctors, surgeons, nurses and lab technicians, among others, for defying orders not to treat demonstrators opposing President Daniel Ortega’s government.
Several of the doctors and other staffers at the Oscar Danilo Rosales Arguello hospital in the western city of Leon were notified upon of the facilities decision when they arrived for their morning shifts. One doctor told news cameras that he got a hold of the brash decision over the radio.
Almost 500 people, mostly protesters, have been killed in the Central American nation since demonstrations began April 18. Demonstrators were initially upset over proposed social security cuts but are now demanding Ortega leave office after a deadly crackdown by security forces and armed pro-government civilians.
Another doctor recalled how in April, hospital director Dr. Judith Lezarja Vargas barred injured protesters from being attended by ordering security guards to lock the entrance doors.
A graffiti depicting Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega is seen on a wall while demonstrators gather to commemorate the 100 days of anti-government protests demanding the resignation of President Daniel Ortega and the release of all political prisoners, in Managua, Nicaragua, Thursday, July 26, 2018. A rights group on Thursday raised by nearly 100 to 448 the number of dead from more than three months of political upheaval and protests demanding that Ortega leaves office. The text on the wall reads in Spanish “Wanted, Murderer.” (AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga)
The hospital and its patients now find themselves without the services of experienced doctors like Javier Pastora Membreno, who served as head of surgery and endoscopy before being fired.
‘Our crime is having tended to the wounded from the protests or having supported the marches in some way, asking for justice, freedom and a real democracy,” he said
‘We are doctors, not terrorists.’
The rash of dismissals came on the very same day authorities announced the arrest of Pierson Gutierrez Solis, 42, who is suspected of the Monday night killing of Rayneia Gabrielle Lima, 32, a medical student from Brazil.
Although there have been widespread complaints for weeks that anti-government protesters were being shunned as well from other public medical facilities, Ortega and his government insist no such order ever existed.
“It is totally false that anyone has been denied attention in the hospitals,” the president said in an interview with Fox News broadcast this week.
Health Minister Sonia Castro also said previously that Nicaragua’s health system “has never, at any time, been closed to any treatment.” The hospital director declined to be interviewed.
Pastora, who had worked for the Health Ministry for 33 years, spoke Friday at a demonstration outside the hospital to protest the firings. The other fired doctors were there along with a hundred or more demonstrators.
Those sacked worked in diverse fields such as pediatrics, spinal medicine, gastroenterology, oncological surgery and pediatrics. They included the only doctor in the municipality specializing in infectious diseases.
“I do not know if the ministry authorities are clear on what this decision means for the quality of attention to the people and for the training of doctors,” Pastora said.
Aaron Delgado said he was performing surgery on a breast cancer patient when he was interrupted and told to report to human resources. There he received his dismissal notice.
“They did not even let me finish the operation,” Delgado said. “All this because a month ago outside the hospital we treated the wounded from a massacre perpetrated by the government’s paramilitaries against citizens who were at barricades in the neighborhoods of Leon.”
Friends and colleagues gather during a vigil in honor of Brazilian medical student Rayneia Lima, who was shot and killed in Managua, Nicaragua, Thursday, July 26, 2018. Brazil’s Foreign Ministry expressed its “profound indignation” over the killing and said it was seeking clarification from Nicaragua’s government. (AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga)
A homeless man sits on a sidewalk backdrop by graffiti that reads in Spanish “Polices killers” and “We want freedom” in a street in Masaya, Nicaragua, Thursday, July 26, 2018. A rights group on Thursday raised by nearly 100 to 448 the number of dead from more than three months of political upheaval and protests demanding President Daniel Ortega leave office. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)
People past walk past a dismantled barricade in the Monimbo neighborhood of Masaya, Nicaragua, Thursday, July 26, 2018. A rights group on Thursday raised by nearly 100 to 448 the number of dead from more than three months of political upheaval and protests demanding President Daniel Ortega leave office. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)
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