(Pointe-à-Pitre) Guadeloupe continued Thursday to see its roads, as well as access to the CHU, blocked by demonstrators on the fourth day of a mobilization launched by a collective of labor and citizen organizations to protest against the health passport and the vaccination obligation of caregivers against COVID-19.
On the roadblocks, which are raised or reinforced depending on the location, voices are raised to contest the method. “I was not able to reach my place of work,” says Doctor Tania Foucan, doctor at the CHU de Guadeloupe. “I don’t know who will manage my consultations this morning,” she wrote on social media.
Shortly before 6 a.m. (11 a.m. in Paris), the road in front of the CHU de Guadeloupe was blocked in both directions by tires erected as a barrier held by “about thirty demonstrators, most of them hooded”, noted a videographer from the AFP.
The barrier was dismantled several times by the police and reassembled by the demonstrators before being set on fire on one of the two axes. The fire was then extinguished, the road was cleared and traffic resumed. However, on the CHU picket line, the only vehicles allowed to enter are ambulances.
“Some of our patients have to go up on foot, even those with coronary heart disease,” said Dr.r Foucan.
“The situation is complicated at the CHU de Guadeloupe. Roadblocks, suspensions, sick leaves, but also blockages and demonstrations in front of the hospital, etc., disrupt the smooth running of care […] chemotherapy, for example, could not be administered today. Doctors cannot join their posts, ”explains Cédric Zolezzi, deputy CEO of the CHU de Guadeloupe.
“There is filtering at the entrance, especially for interns, some of whom are prevented from passing. One of them was even attacked by a hooded person ”, assures the deputy DG who declares that“ there is no possible dialogue ”.
The rector of the academic region, Christine Goff-Ziegler, also condemned Thursday in a press release “all acts of vandalism and obstacles to movement” or “to access to establishments”, of which the students “are the first victims “.
“People need to work”
On the other highways, including in the small roads of the Grands Fonds, in the Guadeloupe countryside, roadblocks are blocking the passage.
Many of them have been dismantled, “by residents or motorists,” noted Steve Salim, an entrepreneur specializing in short agricultural circuits. “There are many road points where there is no one on the roadblocks,” he says.
The entrepreneur, who crisscrosses the island to ensure the delivery of his vegetable baskets, was unable to work normally today: “It’s a big loss, 60 baskets remain on my hands. But I also have several pallets of baskets which must leave for Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélémy: the refrigerated truck cannot take the small roads ”. He criticizes the blockages when “people need to work after these months of pandemic”.
In a press release, the Union des Entreprises-Medef “strongly condemns the obstacles to freedom of movement”. ” Where are we going ? What is the legitimacy of those who prohibit access to healthcare? “Asked the employers’ organization.
“After months of restrictive measures for our population and for the country’s economy, it is unacceptable to allow this spiral of self-destruction to prosper,” she added, estimating that the companies, in which the general strike called by the unions is not very followed, are all the same paralyzed by the blockades.
In addition, the COVID-19 epidemic is picking up slightly in Guadeloupe, although “the situation remains stable at the hospital level”, according to a press release from the prefecture, with a positivity rate of 1.5%. “Respect for individual and collective protection measures is imperative,” the statement said.