The eventual declaration of a national emergency due to the mass resignation of specialists at the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) would allow for the importation of doctors from abroad.
This was assured last Thursday morning by the Minister of Health, Mary Munive, when asked about that solution mentioned just a day earlier by President Rodrigo Chaves.
The Ministry of Health is holding working meetings with the institution that manages public health services and the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) to evaluate the path to follow with the professionals from both entities, who are demanding better working and salary conditions.
The Social Security has already declared an institutional emergency and requested a national emergency decree due to the imminent resignation of 600 specialists starting from the second half of December, while in the Judicial Police, forensic doctors have resigned from their extra shifts.
Decree of national emergency
However, the head of the institution acknowledged that there is a draft of the decree of national emergency. Both the National Union of Specialist Doctors (Siname) and the National Medical Union (UMN) reject that the current situation fits that figure, since the flight of professionals was warned more than two years ago and nothing was done to prevent it.
That condition eliminates the factor of unpredictability required for an emergency, as explained by the president of the first of the labor organizations, Mario Quesada.
For a foreign specialist to practice in Costa Rica, they need a certificate of suitability from the College of Physicians and Surgeons. (CMC). According to the minister, with the declaration, the cumbersome verification process would be completed in one day.
Already done
As an example of this, Munive pointed out the work done with Salvadoran paramedics and nurses who assisted the Government of the Republic in dealing with the emergencies caused by the heavy rains in the second half of November. From the Specialist Union, the mentioned hiring is criticized because foreign doctors would be paid the salary that those who resigned are asking for.
The Board of Directors of the entity that oversees social security agreed to analyze the feasibility of a “technical adjustment” to the salaries of specialists, to equate the compounded salaries that officials with up to 20 years of service in the Social Security have, with the final global salary that was set after the approval of the Framework Law on Public Employment, on March 10, 2023.
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