Doctor Joan Pau Ovalle Granados went on strike for 22 days this Friday of hunger and 48 hours chained to a grate, in protest of the Colombian Government supposedly it has not validated the title to him of specialization in Thoracic Surgery, that attended in Spain, in spite of fulfilling all the requirements.
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“In this process of validation there have been negligence, errors and bureaucracies that are exposing me to having to go through a judicial process that would take more than three years to resolve and that is why I have made the decision to make this protest, “he told Efe Ovalle, who was chained to the gate of the parking lot of the Ministry of Education of
Colombia.
According to the 38-year-old Colombian, he graduated as a surgeon at the Pedagogical and Technological University of Colombia in Tunja, the capital of the department of Boyacá (center) in 2006.
He detailed that after overcoming some personal difficulties managed to finish a specialization in thoracic surgery at the University Hospital of A Coruña (Spain), in May 2019.
Ovalle, who is sitting in a small chair and very close to him has a sleeping bag and a thermal blanket, said he has handed over to the Ministry of Education all the required documentation.
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Those in charge of studying the validation of the degree do not read the information
Doctor Joan Pau Ovalle, 38, on hunger strike.
What has happened, he said, is that those in charge of studying the validation of the title “do not read the information” and added that the group that evaluated his case was composed of a dentist, 1 bacteriologist and a nutritionist and who will therefore continue in his protest for the time it takes to get his degree validated.
While the situation is being resolved, Ovalle has been visited by officials from the Bogota Ministry of Health, including a doctor and a mental health specialist.
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Through these visits, at least seven since the protest began, they have only shown that Ovalle is dehydrated and consuming serum, one of the doctors at the Bogota Health Ministry told Efe.
For its part, the Ministry of Education said in a statement that “it has given all the guarantees (to Ovalle) in accordance with the procedure.”
He recalled that the Government had launched a decongestion plan for the recognition of higher education degrees obtained abroad.
Of the total of 22,591 applications filed by citizens with a cut in December 2020, the Ministry has responded to 21,494 procedures (95%).
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Official title of doctor specializing in Thoracic Surgery.
EFE