Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): It was a day of protests across the country in demand of higher standards of living, better public services and stopping the closure of existing services. Medical staff and neighbors staged a protest outside the Hospital El Algodonal in Antimano, a poor and scruffy quarter of south-west Caracas on Thursday morning.
A doctor, Ana Vielma, said staff opposed plans to close the hospital and transfer employees to other health centers in Caracas. They wanted the hospital management to tell them what was going to happen to them, Vielma said. The hospital had been "remodeled" recently but in an "arbitrary" manner without any sort of planning, she claimed, and that left staff feeling uncomfortable.
The pediatric unit had been closed for six months, she added. Work on restoring it wasn't even 30% completed.
The director of the hospital, Ali Bravo, tried to calm the protesters by inviting them to work in a maternity hospital or another unit at La Vega. But the spark for discontent had been the decision to close El Algodonal and the absence of any information about whether it would be reopened, and if so when, protesters said.
In Aragua and Anzoategui states, state hospitals restricted services to emergencies only as personnel pressed the Health Ministry to agree to a new collective bargaining agreement. Some doctors were said to still be waiting for unpaid dues after 10 years.
Elsewhere, old age pensioners formally employed by the state-run complex taking in CVG Carbonorca, Venalum, Alcasa and Bauxilium blockaded the entrances demanding an 80% raise in payments. They had wanted a meeting with senior management on Wednesday but this didn't happen, said pensioners' union leader Hugo Medina.
Residents of Pena in Yaracuy state blocked two roads into to the town after six months of no running water. They said they'd been to the mayor's office and warned no one would stop them from protesting.
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