Govt sacked 40 doctors for helping protesters

Authorities in Nicaragua have sacked 40 more doctors for tending to those injured in recent protests, local media reported.

According to the report, the health ministry fired some 40 doctors and nurses at a hospital in Jinotepe in southern Nicaragua for political reasons and refused to pay them for July.

It said that there were reports of similar sackings in the country’s south.

A pediatrician told the online newspaper Confidencial that she was not ruling out the possibility of having been sacked for political reasons after she issued a statement sympathetic to those protesting against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

Earlier this week, there were reports the health ministry fired about 20 doctors from the Oscar Danilo Rosales public hospital in the western city, Leon.

The Central American country has experienced unrest since the first anti-government protests erupted on April 18 in response to controversial social security reforms.

Human rights groups put the death toll as high as 448, while the government says it is only in the dozens.