Employees of the hospital in Remedios, Antioquia, complete six days of unemployment

Six days have passed since the employees of the hospital in Remedios, in Antioquia, declared themselves in a permanent assembly and have been unemployed since March 31 due to poor working conditions, outsourcing of contracts and unjustified dismissals.

Currently, employees of the San Vicente de Paul Hospital are only providing hospitalization and emergency services.

The annoyance arises due to the new hiring model, which is now outsourced and, for this reason, has the vast majority of employees unhappy.

Vanesa Bermudez, general practitioner of the hospital and spokeswoman for the Anthoc union, told the newspaper El Colombiano that through outsourcing, employees will have their salaries reduced and their working hours increased.

“We are not going to allow missionary personnel, who would be around 40 people, to be outsourced. That is why we are in cessation of activities. Since we started the assembly, six people have been fired, which we consider a retaliation by the hospital,” Bermudez explains.

Bermudez also warned that the unemployment will only be lifted when the six people who were dismissed have been reinstated, adding that there are other requests such as salary equalization, since general practitioners in similar conditions in neighboring municipalities can earn up to a million pesos more.

The councilman of Remedios, Juan Camilo Saldarriaga, who has also registered and amplified the complaints, remarked that management has not committed to the agreements that employees demand, and denounced that the hospital manager is forcing employees to sign new contracts where they are paid less.

“The missionary staff, who were doctors and nurses, were given the task of investigating and salaries dropped significantly, which everyone said they were not going for that cooperative,” Saldarriaga confirmed.

Another complainant is Mónica Morales, a hospital employee who, according to information from Blu Radio, observed that the contracts with Sintrabalboa, the new cooperative that outsourced the contracts, would be a setback and confirmed that six unjustified dismissals had been recorded, after peaceful marches were held through the streets in the municipality, which, according to her, would be contrary to the law on guarantees.

“We were fired by six workers. They say that it is not improper because their contract was terminated on that date, but they are ignoring the guarantee law that prevents them from firing or hiring other employees,” Morales said.

It is worth recalling that on March 26, the secretary general of the Union of Professionals and Workers of the General Hospital (Sinprogen) in Medellín, Camilo Toro, denounced that he has received death threats, apparently, because the guild has reported various irregularities that have occurred in the health center.

In a dialogue with the newspaper El Colombiano, the union leader reported that, since last week, he had to request protection from the authorities in Medellín, after unknown men threatened him with death, while he was mobilizing in his vehicle through Itagüí.

“In front of the bridge that is near the Secretariat of Mobility a black motorcycle stopped next to me and the 'barbecue' told me: “I kept talking chimbadas, hp, and we are going to kill you,” Toro told the middle of the country.

In an interview with Blu Radio, the union leader also indicated that this would not be the first such incident that he had been a victim of in recent weeks. According to him, although he was not directly involved, he was informed that, more than 20 days ago, people who presented themselves as contractors for the hospital were asking for personal information about him in the entity's parking lot.

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