Guatemala City, November 24 (teleSUR-RHC)-- Health professionals, students, and relatives of medical patients marched on Guatemala’s Presidential Palace in Guatemala City on Monday to protest the country’s dire public health crisis and demand authorities pay attention to the ailing health system, local media reported.

Medical students launched the march from Guatemala City’s Metropolitan University Center before gathering with doctors, other health professionals, and the families of medical patients at the San Juan de Dios General Hospital, the largest and one of the most important public hospitals in the country. 

Protesters then took to the National Congress before marching on the Presidential Palace.  The marches come after Guatemala’s Public Health and Social Assistance Chief Mariano Rayo said last week that the health system is an “absolute disaster” and that the country’s hospitals are in a “pathetic state.”
     
According to Prensa Latina, Rayo responded to plans of the protests by noting that more than $45 million have been earmarked for the government to address urgent medicine and supply shortages. 

But Rayo also predicted that the current public health crisis shows no immediate sign of abating and that some 40 percent of the population will continue to not be able to receive adequate health care at least into next year if the projected budget does not increase.     
     
The protests also come on the heels of a wave of corruption scandals in the Central American country, including a health care corruption scandal involving $14.5 million in medical service contract irregularities in the Social Security Institute.

Activists have called for a new wave of mass mobilizations beginning this Saturday under the banner of returning to the streets and plazas, referring to the months of protests that shook the government and contributed to pressuring former President Otto Perez Molina to resign in September. 

Among the demands of the Saturday’s planned protest are that the government pay more attention to public sectors including education, justice, and health.      

“Given the current health crisis it is clear that the budget does not meet the basic needs that a government should provide to the people,” says the call for participation in the protest on Facebook.
      
Over 1,000 people have pledged on Facebook to attend the protest. Earlier this year, rallies calling for governmental resignations and an end to corruption drew crowds of tens of thousands of protesters fed up with Guatemala’s status quo.