Nursing unions in Paraguay criticize health management during the pandemic

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Amid criticism of the government, Paraguay’s nursing associations and unions on Tuesday remembered the 60 colleagues who died of the coronavirus with an equal number of white chairs placed in front of the cathedral of Asunción, where the archbishop of the capital, Edmundo Valenzuela, officiated a mass in their memory.

During the ceremony, the nursing unions delivered a letter to Valenzuela to be sent to President Mario Abdo Benítez. They expressed their criticism of his health management and the needs of the sector.

The mass and the installation of chairs were the final act of a march that started at the Ministry of Health and continued through the center of Asunción until reaching the Cathedral, as a tribute and vindication of World Nursing Day is celebrated this Wednesday, May 12.

With this peaceful protest, the Paraguayan nursing union urged the Government to respect their schedules and holidays and implement their professional careers.

These demands are the same ones they will make to the president, of the conservative Colorado Party, through the missive delivered to the archbishop on Tuesday, after the mass for their colleagues.

In this regard, Eva Caje, president of the Ineram Union (National Institute of Respiratory and Environmental Diseases), said that they are turning to the ecclesiastical authority because they have already “knocked on many doors” and still do not feel “sufficient support” from the government.

“We want nursing to be recognized as a fundamental pillar of the health team in this pandemic,” Caje added.

During his homily, Valenzuela also criticized the Executive branch and assured that “the marginalization with which nurses are being treated is striking”. “They are target personnel, and it is a primary obligation of the State to satisfy precisely this need for prevention and security,” said the archbishop.

After the mass, the attendees returned to the esplanade of the cathedral to listen to the Ave Maria, sung by the Paraguayan tenor Jorge Castro. At the same time, Valenzuela released some white balloons into the air.

The union was the first to denounce the saturation of the public health system due to the pandemic, in addition to a lack of medicines worsened by the increase of contagions and hospitalizations. These denunciations provoked several citizen protests in Asunción last April to demand the resignation of Abdo Benítez for his management of the pandemic.

Paraguay is also lagging behind other countries in the region in the vaccination campaign, limiting white-collar workers and the elderly. With a little more than 7 million inhabitants, Paraguay has accumulated 297,789 infections since March 2020, with 7,130 deaths and 246,680 recovered.