About 150 Medicine students gave a symbolic hug to the Faculty of Health Sciences at the National University of Saltaas a sign of support for the administrative staff who worked precariously 8 years ago.
The situation was precipitated when two of the workers resigned this Monday due to the impossibility of accessing contests to aspire to a position in a permanent plant.
The student support was also for the teachers, since the campus of the career is interim, even the doctors in charge of rural internships are ad honorem since contests are not enabled.
The career has regarding 500 students, it was created in 2015, first as a headquarters of the National University of Tucuman, and since this year it belongs directly to the UNSa. Students and teachers requested the creation of their own Faculty, including the Rector of the University, Daniel Hoyosrequested that this proposal be dealt with in the University Assembly to be held in October, but the Superior Council rejected the idea.
The doctor and teacher of the career, Alejandra Falú, explained to Salta/12 that there are only 3 regular teachers, because they already belonged to the Faculty of Health Sciences and taught courses in nursing and nutrition careers. The teachers who belong to the medicine campus are all interim and are just holding contests for the first year of the degree. “The calls for competition are being made, but the process is slow. Today we have had a meeting with the authorities. We are trying to build bridges, so that the processes are speeding up,” he said.
Falú said that he continues to aspire to the creation of his own faculty for medicine and that the career can grow because it has specific needs. He indicated that this Wednesday, a commission of the career will travel, with the dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Carlos Portal and the rector Hoyos to a meeting with the UNT authorities because from the second to the seventh year, the students who They study in Salta, they belong to that university. “Just this is the first year that the students are from Salta,” he clarified.
“Today we meet on the premises of the Faculty of Health Sciences to express our full support for the administrative and teaching staff of the medical career, through a symbolic hug. The arguments that were given, such as job insecurity, the delay in the regular competitions, the refusal of the petition to open their own faculty,” student Belén Zapana explained to Salta/12.
What keeps the student body concerned is the resignation of two of the three workers who were performing administrative tasks, who received training from the National University of Tucumán to carry out specific career functions. Falú clarified that there is only one administrator trained by the UNT and the response of the authorities was that the staff of the Faculty of Health would collaborate with the administrative tasks.
“They resigned due to the irregularities in which they were working (…) As they did not reach an agreement with the Faculty, they decided to resign. They were receiving a salary from the UNSa below the poverty line. We presented ourselves precisely today to give them our full support, we want them not to go away and for these PAU medicine positions to be created because we believe they deserve it, they are trained personnel and they have been in charge of our career since 2015 when it began,” said the student, Barbara Marinaro , to Salta/12.
Marinaro said that the dean approached to talk with the students at the end of the symbolic hug, he gave them an answer but it is not the one they expected regarding the resolution of the situation of the three administrators. “He told us that our situation was going to be resolved but that it would take time and they had to see if they would stay with the three administrators because they had to call a competition,” he said.
Regarding the situation of the teaching body, currently the career does not have regular teachers. Zapana explained that the doctors are on an interim basis “waiting for the substantiation of regular competitions.” He indicated that the teachers of the rural internships that take place in the last year provide their services ad honorem.
Added to this, the student body points out the lack of material and supplies in the different subjects for the dictation of classes and the lack of boxes of the chairs to give consultations. For this reason, the claim also points to the fact that the teaching staff can have their own budget that the career already has and manage the resources.
“We understand that any career without teachers has no reason to exist since they are the ones who teach us and impart knowledge, they also guide us in our academic training and also that if we do not have a trained administrative staff to carry out administrative tasks neither a career can be approached”, expresses a statement that the students sent to the press.
“Without medicine in Salta, we would have young people with their higher education truncated and a community that eagerly awaits doctors willing to work. On the other hand, the pandemic has exposed the shortcomings of the health system, fundamentally the lack of medical professionals; for what the conditions in which the race is being dictated is a sad and discouraging irony, “says the student statement.
“The intention has been growth and adding, it has never been to the detriment of other careers. Administrative processes need to be more accelerated. The intention has been growth for UNSa and for the province, because the demand for doctors is above all in inside,” said Falú.
