Conflict between striking medical staff as some return to work

Striking doctors and medical support staff are in conflict over the decision of . The doctors at the Hospital Santo Tomás (HST) and the Hospital del Niño (HN) to return to work on Friday.

Members of another group say they will remain out  until the government meets their requests.

On Saturday November 12 leaders of the National Negotiating Medical Commission (Comenenal)  met to analyze the situation, after doctors at HN  and HST signed  an agreement to lift the work stoppage that began on October 20, 2011, in opposition to Bill 349, which created the Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

Under the agreement, patient appointments will return to  normal from 7:00 am Monday at both hospitals.

There is no reason to continue with the strike and we must believe the word of the Government, said Julissa Rodriguez leader of the HST doctors.

The Government is committed to ensuring compliance with the request of medical and administrative unions of the National Assembly to convene  extraordinary sessions on December  5 and 21 December and  for the bill to be sent back to first reading and referred to the National Coalition for discussion, says a Ministry of Health in a statement.

Rodriguez said the agreement signed with the government was supported by pharmacists, laboratory technicians, the Panamanian Society of General Medicine, and doctors and administrative polyclinics and health centers in La Chorrera, David (Chiriqui), Veraguas, Colon and Azuero. The leaders of these regions could not be present at the meeting with government officials, but were represented by the HST she said.

Rodriguez said the Comenenal was notified of their decision to sign the agreement, but until Saturday night they have received no response. The door is open to all guilds who wish to sign the document she said.

, Fernando Castaneda, Comenenal leader, told La Prensa.that leaders met Saturday at the City of Knowledge, Clayton,  and said that the "ratified" agreement signed by doctors of HST and HN was "irregular" and "shameful." 

They  "became a victim of the mechanism used by this government to gain supporters," he said.