Venezuelan health workers say gov’t is shortchanging them

Caracas, Jun 2 (EFE).- President Nicolas Maduro’s government is failing to meet contractual obligations to doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff and to ensure citizens’ access to care, some 250 Venezuelan health professionals said during a protest here Thursday.

The participants, mainly employees of the capital’s six largest hospitals, gathered in central Caracas for a march to the offices of the IVSS, the government agency that administers pensions and the public health network.

Some marchers held up worn-out shoes to illustrate the struggle they face to make ends meet.

Pablo Zambrano, executive secretary of the Fetrasalud health workers union, told Efe that the protest reflected his members’ “weariness” with “the brutal labor action against the working class and the health-care working class.”