Less than 24 hours after the general strike called by the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) against the measures proposed in the Omnibus Law and the DNU of President Javier Milei, several doubts persisted in many activities regarding how their normal activities would be affected. operation on Wednesday.
But in one essential area the uncertainty was felt more.
Faced with an eventual adhesion to the cessation of activities by the health and administrative staff of Buenos Aires public hospitals, what will happen to the
surgeries scheduled
for January 24?
How to reschedule
a consultation for which you waited three months
?
Which guard will remain open?
The mystery remained stable because, as of Tuesday morning,
the Association of Municipal Doctors had not yet decided to join the strike
.
As they confirmed to
Clarín
"it is not yet defined, in the Central Council (the assembly), at noon, what to do will be discussed."
The Buenos Aires Ministry of Health told this newspaper that patients have already been notified that, if they join,
they will have to reschedule.
The strike, which starts at 12 and ends
at midnight, also includes
a mobilization
from the CGT headquarters in Azopardo at 800 to Congress, where the union demand will be concentrated with
an event scheduled for 3 p.m.
To guarantee the transportation of people to the protest, public transportation will operate, but until 7 p.m. For patients, then, it should not be a major problem to get to the office or the operating room.
From the Buenos Aires ministry they said that as an authority their function "is to guarantee the functioning of
all guards and all critical areas
."
But, they clarified that, if the accession of Municipal Doctors is confirmed,
"outpatient clinics will not operate and scheduled surgeries will be postponed
. "
This same mystery applied to those who were scheduled to undergo
studies with preparation or fasting
- from those of high complexity, such as an angiography with contrast, to a videocolonoscopy, which requires a restrictive diet the days before and the taking of a liquid laxative - as well as for who could go to the laboratories without an appointment to have their blood drawn or needed to retrieve study results.
"The
vaccination shifts
(whether for the covid vaccine or the calendar ones) must also be rescheduled if there is support for the strike," they added from City Health.
Regardless of one decision or another, since it is an essential activity, Health in the City
would provide service between 12 and 24
, although with reduced staff.
From the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health they gave
Clarín
a similar uncertain outlook, after the Union Association of Health Professionals (CICOP) joined the strike: “Institutionally, the hospitals are open, if there is any worker who joins the strike, they will "It will reorganize the attention in each particular sector and if they are all, the sector will remain attached."
And they clarified that “the impact (of the strike on rescheduling) will be seen more tomorrow (Wednesday) than beforehand.”
Doctors and the DNU
In the last few hours, Milei reversed the DNU article on medical prescriptions, which prohibited health professionals from suggesting commercial brands of medicines and demanded that the prescription be with "the generic name of the medicine or international non-proprietary name."
The Government gave in to the claims of health professionals and laboratories.
Article 266 of the DNU had been
one of the most controversial
, with questions from professional associations of doctors, in tandem with laboratories, due to the fact that this attribution was prohibited to them.
Both the pharmaceutical industry and medical associations considered it
detrimental to patient treatments
if the suggestion of a trademark was no longer possible.
ACE