Nicaraguans Pay IMF With Life and Limb

20,000 public health care workers declared an indefinite nationwide strike in mid-November, vowing only to perform emergency operations until the government granted public doctors significant [more than $300 per month] salary increases.

… the Minister of Health Margarita Gurdián reported, “we are seeing how we can comply with a commitment the country has made; to do this, there are [IMF] restrictions on how much the total [public] salary amount can be…”

… For about a decade, Nicaragua’s health care budget has been steadily declining under IMF structural adjustment programs that impose a cap on social spending. From 1996 to 2003, amidst such neoliberal encroachments, Nicaragua saw its supply of doctors per 10,000 people decrease from 6 to 3.8.

… Just after pledging $201 million of debt relief for Nicaragua, the IMF has also promised to reactivate its stalled economic program with the country, meaning a new IMF loan package of about $100 million, (total international aid made available reaches around $230 million).

… Last week the newspaper El Nuevo Diario reported that Mario Arana, the Minister of Finance, considered it impossible to increase doctors’ salaries since “the International Monetary Fund made a series of recommendations upon announcing the renewal of the economic program with Nicaragua, among them to not further increase salaries.”

… What has the salary crisis and resultant strike meant for the Nicaraguan populace? In the case of Reina Landeros Poveda, it has meant a fundamentally altered life. … Reina had her left leg amputated just beneath the hip on January 21.

Ben Beachy, “Swindling the Sick: The IMF Debt Relief Sham,” Commondreams.org, 1/27/06.