ITALY: Doctors go on strike against austerity package

Record ID: 339545

  • Title: ITALY: Doctors go on strike against austerity package
  • Date: 20th July 2010
  • Summary: ROME, ITALY (JULY 19, 2010) (REUTERS) DOCTORS AND PUBLIC HEALTH WORKERS GATHERED IN FRONT OF PARLIAMENT HOLDING BALLOONS AND FLAGS VARIOUS OF PROTESTING DOCTORS DOCTOR WITH RED BANDANA AROUND HIS NECK (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) VINCENZO CARPINO, PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION OF ITALIAN ANAESTHETISTS AND EMERGENCY RIANIMATION SPECIALISTS (AAROI - EMAC), SAYING "For months n
  • Embargoed: 4th August 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Employment,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAJVFL2PGTRB12Y9XG2NXRIKIG
  • Story Text: Italian doctors and veterinarians went on strike on Monday (July 19) to protest against a new budget law they fear will result in salary cuts and a substantial reduction of hospital personnel.
    More than 40,000 surgery operations were postponed and thousands of specialist visits were cancelled throughout Italy as a result of the strike, the ANSA news agency reported.
    The unpopular 25-billion euro austerity package, which includes pay cuts in the public sector and drastic reductions to regional funding, has drawn protests against the government of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi from workers of many sectors, including policemen, teachers and public administrators.
    Doctors' representatives held a sit-in protest in front of the lower chamber of Parliament where the budget law will be discussed in the coming weeks.
    "For months now we have been pointing out to the government that this budget law is not good," said Vincenzo Carpino, the head of Italy's Association of Anaesthetises and Emergency RIAnimation Specialists (AAROI - EMAC).
    "The reason why it is not good is not because it cuts salaries and pensions but mostly because it blocks the hiring of new personnel. Over 100 000 doctors working in the public sector, 30 000 will retire in the coming years and there will not be substitutes," he added.
    According to Italy's largest union for doctors working in the public sector (AANAO ASSOMED) Italy will loose 30,000 doctors in 4 years as a consequence of the austerity package.
    "We will now have a poorer (health) system, hospitals with less doctors, therefore hospitals that will be less prepared to respond to health problems that are constantly growing and becoming more complicated as the population is ageing and the pathologies increase," said Costantino Troisi, the national secretary of Italy's largest union for doctors working in the public sector (AANAO ASSOMED).
    The austerity budget, which the government says will shore up Italy's strained public finances, was approved through a confidence vote by the senate last week. It will now go before the lower house, where the government is also planning to call a confidence vote by the end of this month.
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