Some 1,500 workers from hospitals and clinics covered by the Social Security Institute took part in escalating strikes and street protests beginning September 18. The action was extended when doctors and nurses from public hospitals and clinics joined a 72-hour strike October 31, paralyzing seven of the country’s largest public hospitals. The day before Flores announced his retreat, 10,000 people marched in San Salvador, the capital, blocking major boulevards and entrances to the city.

A week before, tens of thousands of trade unionists, transportation workers, students, and peasants paralyzed the city in a protest rejecting the government’s plan and demanding legislation barring privatizations. Students and faculty at the University of El Salvador emptied their classrooms to join the march, canceling 80 percent of classes.

"The state and the government are constitutionally obligated to guarantee health care for Salvadorans," said Ricardo Alfaro of SIMETRISS, the union that organizes doctors in the social security system. "The government blames us for abandoning patients, when what we are doing is fighting so that the population won’t really be abandoned with the privatization," he said, responding to the government’s campaign against the strikers. The government declared the strike "constitutionally illegal" October 28, saying it affected essential services.

Placed on the defensive, Flores stressed that hospitals and clinics within the system would not be sold, and that only certain services will be transferred to private physicians and hospitals. He has promoted the plan as a way to "democratize" the preventive health care system, offering to extend coverage to domestic workers, farm workers, and children not covered by the government programs.

Alfaro noted that 30 percent of the population has no access to health care, and said that number would increase if the social security system is privatized.  
 
 
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