Nurses union leader insists protest is for wages not politics

www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Caracas Metropolitan nurses trade union president, Ana Rosario Contreras says she does not understand why pro-government agitators are targeting nurses, bio-analysts, dentists and workers from 14 hospitals and 85 outpatient units protesting at the Finance Ministry.

“We haven’t been paid for the last three weeks and that’s why we are protesting … we want the Ministry to pass our pay to the Metropolitan Mayor’s Office.”

Contreras complains that fellow nurse Anselmo Torres was hit in the back with a marble from a sling and threatened by government circles … “it’s the first time I have been discriminated against for attending patients.”