translated from Spanish: Doctor’s contract that processed protection will be respected, says hospital director

After a breastfeeding ISSSTE physician managed to get a judge to grant her a suspension so as not to be forced to return to work in person at the Hospital 20 de Noviembre, the director of the institution, José Alfredo Merino, assured that the labor rights of the public servant will be respected and that her employment will not be affected.
“We haven’t had an impact on her, we haven’t missed any faults, we understand a lot, and today we have to be very sensitive that our workers are afraid to be, like the whole population, with the fear of infection, and I understand that she has a specific fear of not infecting her son,” the official said in interview.
Animal Político made known this week that the palliavist physician Silvia Adriana Hernández Cervantes processed an indirect protection after the Human Resources Directorate of the National Medical Center November 20 – which was converted entirely into COVID hospital – required her to return to work on August 3, based on pressures and threats that, otherwise, she would accumulate faults that could lead to the termination of her contract.
Read more: Judge grants suspension to ISSSTE doctor not to work in COVID hospital during lactation
The 34-year-old doctor, who had her son four months ago and is in the lactation stage, obtained the provisional suspension of the First District Court in Administrative Matters in Mexico City last Monday.
“Of course, in the face of a court ruling, more regulations should not be: we must listen to the matter and obviously, if we have the temporary suspension, we will continue with the colleague at home, everything quiet and nothing will happen,” the hospital director reiterated.
Given the doctor’s point that there are no safe areas for lactation at the institution, Merino stated that the room for this purpose is constantly disinfected and is separated from COVID patients, who are concentrated only on the second floor.
“The lactation room is functional; maybe the roommate is convinced that no area of the hospital is safe; I believe that no place in any hospital in the country, either private nor public, today with COVID can be 100% safe, but we are responsible for sanitizing and that the breastfeeding room is in a suitable condition for colleagues who need this to exercise it,” he said.
The official added that the hospital’s Steering Council agreed on additional measures to protect vulnerable medical personnel from the new coronavirus, a policy he stressed has resulted in the institution with the lowest mortality of health workers by COVID-19 on 20 November. It was in May that the death of a hospital stretcher boy named Hugo Lopez was released after contracting the disease.
Find out: Boosting breastfeeding, a debt from Mexico and its governments
“I think we’ve done a titanic, intense job to keep things right; of course I’m not going to put anyone working on November 20 at risk,” said Principal Merino.
He added that when workers with vulnerabilities had to return in person, they would do so in a graduate manner and will not be assigned to areas that treat COVID patients directly.
“If any (workers) come back vulnerable because I suddenly have a gap in patient care or something, first: they will not return to COVID area, that is a guarantee, and second: he will return to cover that space for short time, defined, and he will return home; (the return would be) only to not compromise the medical care of patients on November 20, but the intention is that they will be at home and cared for as long as possible,” he said.
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Original source in Spanish