Private sector medics and other personnel from non-public health care institutions staged a sit-in in front of the Jalisco Health Department (SSJ) on Sunday after President Manuel Lopez Obrador announced that they will have to wait for their age group to receive anti-Covid shots.
The federal government has focused the initial stages of its vaccination program on inoculating health workers in public institutions and the elderly, in order, it says, to reduce fatalities among the most vulnerable sectors of the population.
Lopez Obrador said private sector doctors, nurses and dentists “will have to wait their turn,” and defended his government’s vaccination program. “We are guided by what the specialists tell us, and what matters most to us is saving lives,” he said.
Representatives for private health care institutions say the government’s strategy makes no sense, and say their members are being unnecessarily placed at risk for ideological reasons.
The SSJ says only 1,700 jabs have been applied to personnel employed in the state’s private health care sector, and that around 57,000 more workers have yet to receive their first shot.